


Covenant

by Xero_Sky



Category: The Avengers (2012), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Abuse of Canon, Abuse of Norse mythology, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Eventual Smut, Fluff, Forced Marriage, M/M, Odin and Frigga's dubious parenting, Post-Avengers, Profanity, References to Norse Mythology, Slow Build, Steve/Tony flirtation, Thorki/thunderfrost - Freeform, Violence, my dubious sense of humor
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-05-09
Updated: 2013-11-30
Packaged: 2017-12-10 20:53:49
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 32,790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/790053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Xero_Sky/pseuds/Xero_Sky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Loki is brought back to Asgard for justice, he's somewhat appalled to find that his family still cares for him and worries about his well-being.  Even worse, they have a cunning plan to keep him safe from Thanos and sort out the havoc he's been wreaking everywhere.</p><p>It works.   And for one brief shining moment, Loki Is Happy.</p><p>Naturally, it all goes downhill from there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Disaster

The golden throne room of Asgard was designed for the theatre of state, and everything about it, from the massive scale to the ornate decoration to the lighting, was made to focus the eye on the splendor of the throne itself. On the most solemn occasions, Odin Allfather, resplendent in his armor, would be sitting on the throne, Gungnir in hand, ready to lay down justice on Asgard and the realms. His Queen Frigga would be at his side, the throne magically shifting to welcome her presence. The Crown Prince of Asgard would stand on the steps of the dais, charging the air with his readiness to enforce the Allfather’s will. Guards and officials in shining armor would line the long walls of the room, and the might of the Aesir would be present behind them, in the form the myriad glories of its warriors. Woes betide any enemy who was brought before the throne of Asgard for judgment.

  
Loki felt his return deserved at least that much effort.

Instead, he was standing next to Thor before his father’s desk in his study, with Odin sitting in a large, comfy chair on the other side, flanked by Frigga. Only the presence of Gungnir, firmly grasped in Odin’s hand, made this more a more official occasion than any other episode in the youth of princes with more power than sense. He’d quite literally lost count of all the times he or Thor (but usually both) had been summoned to stand here, awaiting judgment for whatever they’d done.

He had expected something a little more dramatic, honestly. Something a little more in keeping with the gravity of his crimes.

Odin and Frigga did look appropriately solemn, with that particularly hard gleam in his mother’s eye which meant that she was acting as a queen, rather than a doting mother. She had been the one to remove his shackles and the muzzle, evaluating the marks left behind with a critical, motherly eye. That was familiar enough.

It was the discussion that followed, however, that really took things out of the realm of the odd to that of the completely nonsensical. Already a little off-balance, it took him several moments to process what he was being told.

It was Thor’s smile that finally convinced him they were all serious.

He wasn’t wearing one. At all. Not even a hint.

Thor was in fact as solemn as Loki had ever seen him. No, more so; even at his coronation, Thor hadn’t been able to keep himself from smirking at everyone. The man had come from battle limping and covered in blood, and he’d been considerably more cheerful than he was now. Now, his expression was nearly mournful, and while it fit Loki’s sense of the occasion better, it was out of character and unnerving. His eyes, however, were still unbearably blue, and Loki was forced to look away, back at Odin, and his mother.

Who also appeared to be horrifyingly serious.

“Let me see if we understand each other,” Loki began when they were finally done explaining what they intended. “For my crimes of treason, consorting with Thanos, betraying the people of Midgard to an alien species, miscellaneous murders, and failing repeatedly to kill Thor, you plan to punish me by marrying me off?”

The things he’d done, all his schemes, the agonies he’d suffered… Did they merit no more recognition than this… this farce? He was insulted.

Standing ramrod straight, the God of Mischief glared at those who would dare judge him, and did his level best to stare them down.

Perhaps it was due to having only one eye left to bear his Jotun son’s withering gaze, or maybe to having experienced Loki as a teenager, but Odin, though mildly impressed, was not intimidated.

“The marriage is a solution, not a punishment. That will come later,” the Allfather said gravely.

“And who shall have the honor of my hand?” Loki asked, trying to sound more haughty than exasperated. He wasn’t sure it worked.

“Thor. Your brother.”

“He’s not my – wait, what?”

“Exactly. You share not ties of blood, but of affection,” Odin said, seemingly not at all disturbed by the prospect of his sons marrying each other.

Incest between siblings was not unheard of in Asgard, but neither was it an everyday occurrence. Unlike parent-child relationships, which were roundly condemned as inherently unbalanced and wrong, sibling incest was regarded as something of a lark, an expression of high spirits and youthful love. The Vanir goddess Freyja and her brother Freyr had even set something of a fashion with their not-particularly-discreet affections. Maybe that was where his calmness sprang from. Or maybe he just saw it as a particularly tidy way of tying up all the loose ends Loki had left him with.

“Has no one been listening to a word I’ve been –“ Loki began, but Odin continued on, cutting him off and confirming his suspicions.

“Loki, son of Odin, son of Laufey, you have committed great wrongs, it is true, and for these you will atone. For the harm you have done your brother, you will make such amends as seem fitting to you both. For the suffering of Asgard, you will work to rebuild Bifrost and to earn once again the trust of our people. For the suffering of Midgard, wergild will be paid. Your dealings with the Jotnar brought both sides only misery, and debts that have been paid in sufficient blood, thus we will offer them only words and our pledge of peace. In all these things you will take the lead, and they will be done in the name of Loki, Prince of Asgard. This is your punishment.”

“That is quite possibly the most idiotic--“

“The Aesir and the Jotnar are perhaps the most bloodthirsty peoples among the Nine, and you share in both legacies. The things you have done, while lamentable, are in no way outside the bounds of forgiveness, for there would be no one left in Asgard if they were,” Odin continued, undeterred.

It was driving Loki mad, but the anger and bewilderment was fighting now with a certain amount of relief in his heart. Asgard did not lack for barbaric punishments, and his ‘father’ had a certain genius for inventing them. Worse than that, he’d had little other than Thor’s reaction to gage Asgard’s opinion of what he’d done, and he was dismayed to find that mattered to him. He had never despised the Aesir until he’d discovered he was not one of them. Except for the last year, he’d spent all of his very long life as a prince of Asgard, and Asgard was still, despite his best efforts, his home and his anchor. It was disgusting. He rallied, pushing these miserable feelings down and away.

“If you will excuse all that I have done, then for what crime am I sentenced to an eternity of marriage to Thor, of all people?!”

“Heimdall sees most things, my son, and your mother and I see still others. For all your bravado, you did not conspire with Thanos or the Chitauri; you fell into their hands and you bargained for your life. You thought you were alone and without hope of rescue, and you did what seemed best to you, and I will not fault you for acting in desperation. Make no mistake," he said, cutting off Loki's objections, "I know full well you enjoyed much of the chaos you caused in their name. It is in the nature of the Aesir and the Jotun both, and you have always reveled in chaos and mischief, but you are capable of all things, and Thanos has not damned you beyond redemption."

Loki fumed, but his tongue seemed to fail him, which might have been a first, or at the very most, a second.

"As my heir, Thor is tied to the realm in ways you are not, Loki. Even when you were king, you lacked this, for Thor and I still lived, and so the mantle could not truly pass to you. It is not a matter of blood, but of sanction. When you marry, you will gain the strength and protection of both Thor and Asgard itself. Despite what he may have led you to believe, there is power here to keep you safe from Thanos and whatever is left of the Chitauri.”

Loki’s smile was brittle and disbelieving. The reminder that he was, once again, only the lesser prince stung him. “And keep me safely in custody, no doubt, in the bosom of my loving family.”

“No doubt,” Odin said evenly. “Until the day you realize that this is where your heart truly lies.”

“You would harbor a serpent in your midst, to prove there is no venom left in it.”

“I would have both my sons home. And will ye or nil ye, you are my son.”

Loki cast about for another rational person in the room. Surely someone else saw this for the disaster it was... He passed over Frigga, guessing her opinion on this travesty from the benevolent smirk she wore. That left him turning to Thor for a voice of reason, and if that wasn’t a sign of the end of all things, nothing was.

“Are you just going to stand there and say nothing while they sell you so cheaply? You must know what folly this is!” he demanded.

“Have you not said often enough that we are not brothers?” Thor said calmly, meeting his gaze directly. “Then we will be wed, and there will be no more doubt that you belong here, and that your home is with me.”

“And what do you think to gain from this, brother?” Loki sneered. “A Jotun whore in your bed? A trophy at your side?”

Thor smiled for the first time since he’d brought Loki home, and though it was small, it was genuine. “I would gain my heart’s desire.”

Well, there was no reasoning with _that_ , was there? Whatever _that was_.

“Mother,” Loki said, finally turning to Frigga with a sense of desperation, “you must see what madness this is.”

“Certainly,” she answered, “but what choices do we have? Shall we lock you in a hole for a thousand years? Shall we torment you until you are mad? Let you free to continue on your path until Thanos finally destroys your soul? Or should we protect you and give you a chance of happiness?”

Frigga was implacable and unruffled, if not unkind, and Loki remembered abruptly why he had stopped seeking her counsel on things he knew she wouldn’t agree with. It was like arguing with the wind, or the sunlight, or some other metaphor for a mother who was relentlessly right about most things and absolutely knew it.

“I do not need protection,” he said stiffly. “I refuse.”

There were several moments of uneasy silence, and then the Allfather spoke again, his voice heavy with finality.

“I am afraid you have mistaken me, Loki. All of us are of more import than our simple selves: we are the royal family of Asgard. There is now too wide a rift between us to leave un-mended, for both our sake and that of those who look to us for protection and guidance. I cannot offer you a choice in this, just as I could not offer it to Thor. You will be wed at sunset tomorrow.”

“Did you all lose your wits while I was gone?” Loki replied, his voice pleasant and dripping venom. “Do you truly believe that this mystical spirit of bright Asgard will bring all to rights again? Your arrogant little charade will solve nothing. It will end _nothing_.”

There was a hand on his arm suddenly, and he found himself jerked face to face with an angry Thor. “No, Loki, we lost _you_ , and it will not happen again, I swear it. Your own wits serve you ill if you believe there is nothing but vanity behind this. Aesir, Jotun, brother, foe, or husband: I care not, but I will not let you fall again, now that you are with me once more.”

Damn him, had Thor’s eyes always been that shade of blue? Loki’s tongue felt numb again suddenly, his scathing rebuke evaporating. He did manage to sneer, thus saving his reputation, but he was suddenly unsure of himself. Why was his ‘family’ so set on this?

The thought occurred, however, that he could simply go through with the whole thing and then disappear afterwards. He already had ample reason to hide himself away for a few centuries, even if he was loath to admit to such things, and he already had a list of suitable places worked out.

Odin might watch him carefully for awhile, but once his vigilance slipped, Loki would vanish. As for Thor, he had little doubt that he could evade his brother’s intentions, whatever they were, without much trouble. He only had to suffer through whatever nonsensical ceremony they had in store, and then he would be free once again.

It almost made him smile. Almost.

*******

The wedding did, indeed, take place at dusk on the next day. The announcements seemed to have gone out before Loki himself had been informed, and a large number of people from all across the realms turned up on the wedding day in their finest clothes and most glittering jewels. Apparently the wedding of the princes of Asgard was an event not to be missed, regardless of who they were marrying or how terribly scandalous it all was.

In fact, the scandal made it irresistible. Loki was a Jotun? He’d committed crimes in the service of Thanos? Invaded another realm? And now he was marrying his brother? Who could resist?

There were formal dignitaries from more places than any one person could remember, all of them done up in exotic costumes that set tongues wagging wherever they went. A pile of gifts, some of them not immediately identifiable as anything but expensive, grew steadily on the platform set aside for it, drawing a crowd kept back by stoic guards. Speculation on who and what had come with what and whom ran rampant.

Vanaheim sent its own scandal to attend, in the form of a party of royals and their cloud of courtiers. These spent much of their time casting sidelong glances at the party from Alfheim, which included a young princess one of the Vanir princes had apparently shamed himself and his family over.

The Jotnar, still technically at war with Asgard, were neither asked nor expected to send a representative. They did, however, arrange for an Asgardian outpost on Muspelheim to be bombarded with a number of dead and rotting snow bears, specifically in Loki's honor.

Nobody from Midgard was invited, on the grounds that attempting to arrest one of the grooms during the ceremony would be bad form, and that none of Thor’s new friends could be trusted not to try it.

Under Asgard’s perfect skies, tables groaned under weight of the food laid out for the feasts, banners in bright colors flew from every available surface, and living, flowering vines had been coaxed to spiral up every column and pillar overnight, shedding their high, sweet scent everywhere. There was music and dancing to be had around every corner. Fountains of mead and wine shot up from pools with cups set up in readiness all around the basins. The Aesir excelled at both violence and celebration, and took them both equally seriously.

To have them going to such effort for such a bizarre reason made Loki’s head spin a little, but then, he’d been off-balance since he’d first set foot on Bifrost yesterday. The entire wedding day, in fact, had begun to seem unreal to Loki before it even started.

*******

They had stayed with him that night, of course. Between the three of them, his former family had no trouble at all keeping an eye on him, politely blocking all avenues of escape. Irritatingly, they gathered in his own rooms after dinner, denying him the solitude he craved and treating him like they would a long-lost son who had suddenly returned. Of course, he was exactly that, but he was also a villain brought to justice, wasn’t he? A king betrayed? A monstrous offspring returned snarling to the fold?

  
Unfortunately, he was also exhausted after a long day spent trying to conquer Midgard on behalf of hideous beings who’d forced him to do their will, and his burning resentment eventually faded into simple unconsciousness.

  
He woke once or twice during the night, finding himself tucked into his own bed, which it turned out he had missed very much. Thor and Odin had been sitting in front of the fire together, drinking something from small glasses and talking in low voices, their heads almost together. Later, it had been Frigga and Odin together, sitting close and whispering. Loki remembered being sick once, when he was very young, and waking to find them this way, watching over him as he slept. The past and the present blurred as his eyes slipped shut, and he wondered what illness afflicted him now.

Many hours later, in the warmth of mid-morning, Loki had awoken to find Frigga letting a train of servants into his rooms. Loki had regarded them all with suspicion and open, if sleepy, hostility until a tray of fresh pastries was offered to appease him. Regardless of how much hatred he might have nurtured for the Aesir, his affection for Asgard’s bakers had never waned. Letting the delicate frosting melt into pure sugar on his tongue that morning, he almost forgave everyone for everything, forever.

Then Frigga started unpacking the chests she’d brought with her, and he’d completely lost control of his life shortly thereafter.

It wasn’t that he had much to actually do today, but he had to do it in style, and that apparently required him to be scrubbed, fluffed, trimmed, fitted, and dressed to within an inch of his life. He considered setting the building on fire, or at least the pair of servants fussing interminably over his hair, but Frigga was watching him in the mirror. It was a sad fact that Loki could lie to anyone about anything, could create any kind of chaos, just as long as she wasn’t there looking at him while he did it.

The fact that she wasn’t his blood mother made no difference at all. It was completely unfair.

With a sigh, he’d permitted most of what they intended for him, denying only a few things here and there, just for spite. He was placated by a steady supply of both his favorite delicacies and his mother’s banter; he and she had always enjoyed the most scurrilous gossip and scandalous tales, and there was a year of it to catch up on.

No one mentioned the occasion he was being made ready for.

By the time they were done with him, he and Frigga were almost as easy with each other as if he’d never been gone, and he might conceivably admit, entirely to himself, that he had just possibly missed her. Even though she was a party to this current madness. They had shared a quiet meal together as they waited for the sun to go down.

Ignoring the guards stationed all around the room, and the feeling of the heavy seidr wards placed all around to subdue his own powers, it might nearly have been pleasant.

*******

When Loki finally advanced up the aisle with Thor at his side to swear the marriage oaths, he and his husband-to-be were stiff with gleaming armor and densely embroidered robes. In a palace quite overwhelmed with gold, they wore silver over their signature colors.

Thor’s hair shone like a halo in the last rays of the setting sun, gathered back and plaited intricately, and Loki was glad to see that he wasn't the only one who'd suffered. His brother also looked tired, with dark patches under his eyes, but his smile was as bright as always when he saw Loki watching him.

Odin and Frigga, also ornately dressed, were waiting for them at the foot of the throne. The old man was positively radiating smugness, and Frigga beamed at the sight of her sons, about to be joined together in incestuous matrimony. Loki found the two of them unnerving. They looked like this was something they’d long expected and were happy to see come to fruition. Frigga was rather misty-eyed, in fact, and he knew very well, having spent most of the day with her, that it wasn’t misery behind her eyes. Of course, the woman was overly fond of weddings anyway, that being her area of authority, but, still, Loki was fairly certain that dewy-eyed smiles weren’t the proper response to marrying your sons to each other.

Unless, of course, she no longer considered Loki her son. In fact, now that he thought about it, perhaps this strange complacency he was feeling, this sense that none of this was real and therefore not to be worried about, was due to her; had she drugged his food?

That particular thought made his stomach drop, try as he might to dismiss it. He was probably just suffering shock. Perhaps, if he was lucky, the Hulk had actually given him some sort of brain trauma, and in truth he was in a hospital bed on Midgard, having an especially vivid series of hallucinations. That would be nice.  
Odin held up his hands, and there was silence, except for the slow throbbing of a drum. The expectations of the crowd were almost a physical weight on the back of Loki’s neck.

The Allfather approached his sons with an ornate knife held up for the crowd to see. Carefully, he sliced into the palms of their right hands, each in turn, letting a few drops from each wound fall into a goblet of wine. He bade them clasp their bloody hands together, and then Frigga came forward with a pair of silver and gold ribbons, which she wrapped and tied around their hands tightly while pronouncing her blessing over their union.

The urge to pull away was almost overwhelming, but Thor’s hand gripped his tightly, and Loki felt lightness steal over him, a feverish weakness. He knew he was standing firmly on his own two feet, grasping Thor’s hand with retributive harshness, but he couldn’t seem to feel it.

Then the goblet was lifted to Thor’s lips, and he drank half of the wine, his eyes holding Loki’s over the golden curve of the rim. Brother, friend, enemy… and what would they be now? Did it even matter?

Loki’s thoughts skipped away from that question, because he had no answers. Not now. Not yet.

When the cup was pressed to his own mouth, he drank.  There was no way to flee, and nowhere to go if he did. This was as good as anyplace to rest until he could set his plans in motion.

The wine was sweet and biting on his tongue, and strangely cold enough to send a shiver through him.

Frigga pronounced their union in a loud, clear voice, and there was cheering, but Loki barely heard it, as the sound of the drum seemed to have blended with his own heartbeat in his ears. Disoriented, he realized with a shock that there were runes he didn’t quite recognize woven into the ribbons tying him to Thor. Rune magic wasn’t really something he could say he’d mastered, but he shouldn’t have had trouble reading these, should he? That wasn’t how a marriage vow should read; that was more like an invocation…

The ribbons flared brightly before he could finish puzzling it out, and then they sank painlessly into his and Thor’s flesh, disappearing as the glow spread under their skin, covering them entirely from head to toes for a brief moment before fading. He felt the cold wash of power burning through his flesh, weaving itself between the two of them, and it was already too late. He reared back, but Thor held him tight, and Frigga’s hand was on his shoulder, steadying him.

The two of them were _bound_ , Loki realized, the hair rising on the back of his neck.

He could feel Thor, and he would always know where Thor was from now on, the way a blind man can tell the direction of the sun from the warmth. Thor, presumably, could do the same with him, and Loki’s days of freedom were over.

Panic started singing in his veins, muffled only by the sensations of raw power and rising seidr that came from everywhere around them, rising invisibly from the earth, falling silently from the air. Was this intentional? Had someone sabotaged the ceremony, had the ribbons been switched out for something harmful, or had the wine been poisoned?

Odin’s heavy hands came down on their shoulders, turning them around to face the crowds, their hands falling away from each other because it didn’t matter anymore, and presented them to the crowd as Heir and Consort, princes both. The Allfather said something more, something long and sonorous that Loki couldn’t hear over the sound of his own heartbeat, even though they stood so close, and the cheering eventually resolved itself into his name and Thor’s. Thor took his other hand and held them both up, and Loki scanned all the happy, shouting faces with disbelief, certain that most of them would’ve been just as happy to slit his throat ten minutes ago.  
Was he the only one who could feel this, who could hear it all around them? Thor turned to him, and as their eyes met, Loki knew that he was not. Thor lived with the knowledge of this power around him all the time: this was Asgard. Loki could see it in resonate, somehow, in the blue of his eyes. How had Loki lived with this all around him for his whole life and never realized it? The depth of it, the rolling brightness of it all left him breathless. He could feel the realm spread out beneath and above and around him, living and vibrant, a branch of the World Tree.

Thor beamed at him then, bright as the dawn, and drew him forward for a kiss that was sweet and tender and cut through all his wavering defenses like a burning brand through new snow. It should have been unbelievably awkward, but kissing his brother was warm and slow and easy, a thing both comfortable and thrilling at the same time.

Did Thor really love him? How had he missed _that_ all these years?

Thor grinned at the crowd, acknowledging the cheers and whistles, and then slipped an arm around his new Consort’s waist, pulling him closer to kiss him again. And again, it was remarkably easy for Loki to go along with it, to feel pleasure and warmth where they were offered. It was so very unlike him.

“Why did you never tell me about this?” he whispered against Thor’s mouth, resting their foreheads against each other. He was angry, but it was hard to remember it.

“Would you have believed me?” Thor asked in answer.

“No,” Loki said instantly.

“There you have it,” his… brother smiled back.

“That’s it? That is the truth of it?”

“And perhaps,” Thor said, lifting his head to meet his eyes, “one day I thought you would know it for yourself.”

Loki couldn’t quite make sense of those words at that moment, and by the time he did, he didn’t care.

*******

There were, of course, many more things yet to do that night, mostly ceremonial or diplomatic, and Loki and his new husband dutifully did them each in turn. Thor did most of the talking, and no one seemed to find it odd that Loki didn’t seem to be paying much attention. He wasn’t trying to be insulting; he just couldn’t quite focus. Then there was a feast, and singing, and dancing, and for Loki, still drunk on the magic moving in his blood and tying him to Thor, it all blurred into one riot of color and noise. He could feel Thor’s heat, even when the two of them drifted apart in the crowd, and for a time it was all he needed.

Maybe this could work, he thought, contemplating the deep color of his wine. Maybe, despite Thor being even more and even less his brother than he had ever been, despite being married to him, this could still work out somehow. Maybe there was something, some sort of happiness to be found here after all… His own seidr was still there, still radiant under his fingertips, unbound, but he was bound to Thor, and somehow that was alright. The power he could feel moving beneath his feet and in the air around him in slow rivers, touching Odin and Frigga and Thor, embracing everything that was Asgard, had woven itself through his bones now, ancient and immutable. He didn’t understand it, completely, but perhaps this was what Odin had spoken of, the means they sought to keep him safe.

Thor had married him to protect him, and as nonsensical as that had seemed, he felt the truth of it now.

But for once, he was okay with that. There was still an inner light and an outer darkness, but this time he was inside that radiance, and warm. It wasn’t a terrible price to pay, was it? He hadn’t even given up his freedom, truly, because, Jotun or not, Asgard itself flowed in his veins now, the essence of it, and he would carry it with him wherever he chose to go. Right? His Jotun blood did not rebel, and it occurred to him that Odin himself was half Jotun, and that Thor himself, pinnacle of Aesir nobility, was thus a quarter Jotun himself. Of course Asgard didn’t reject him.

There was so much potential.

Towards the end of the night, when Loki was as drunk from wine as from magic, he watched Thor with a bemused smile, considering various things. Thor was sitting on a table just across the way, telling some tale to the group around him, using his hands as much as his voice, and it was hard not to be struck by how damned handsome the man could be, even that deep in his cups. The red flush in his cheeks, the blue of his eyes, the golden hair… Thor really did have an adorable smile. He always had.

He wondered what it would be like to touch him. Did he want to? Would Thor expect it? Would Thor want to touch him? Would he want Thor to? The questions chased each other pleasantly around his thoughts, and he finished his wine, beckoning to a server for more. He saw no reason to stop drinking any time soon. The warmth in his belly was scorching and wondrous.

The story ended with a burst of laughter from his audience, and Thor laughed with them before draining his own glass. A lovely noblewoman, from Vanaheim by the looks of her, took the opportunity to approach Thor, exclaiming with melodramatic sorrow how unfortunate it was that the prince was no longer available, and pressed close to whisper something in his ear. Thor laughed and blushed, and she took the opportunity to slip right into his lap, wrapping her arms around his neck and nuzzling his throat. She was obviously drunk herself, and she wobbled enough that Thor’s arms shot out reflexively to steady her. She kissed him, and he wasn’t in the habit of refusing the affections of beautiful women, especially ones he’d bedded a number of times before. Reflexively, he kissed her soundly, and then his brain caught up with current events and he pulled away, his eyes widening in horrified surprise, as he moved to push her off his lap.

Oh, _too_ late.

In the next moment, her long hair, trailing nearly to the floor in a complex braid, burst into flames. The fur wrap she wore over her shoulders reared up on its own and leaped to the floor, assuming the rough shape of some four-legged, indeterminate beast. A howl burst from the thing as it lunged at her, and despite her flaming hair, the Vanir fled screaming down the length of the hall, chased by the snarling fur and her tardy retinue. Banners and trailing cloaks caught fire in her wake.

Thor had moved to help before he caught site of his new husband rising from his seat at the high table, utterly graceful in his long robes, utter venom in his eyes. Thor wasn’t drunk enough to pretend he didn’t know exactly what had happened, and despite the hand he held out, Loki was already gone.

The royal marriage of the Princes of Asgard wouldn’t be consummated for _years_.


	2. Flailing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the Sons of Odin generally fail to cope with anything.
> 
> And Nick Fury has a particularly annoying day.

Prince Consort Loki Odinson of Asgard spent his wedding night alone in the penthouse suite at the Regent Beverly Wilshire in Los Angeles.  He paid for a week upfront in cash and ensured that no questions would be asked by dressing exceedingly well and actually having $50,000 in cash on hand.  He had recruited a small group of personal staff from among various people on the street who already looked sleek and rich enough to work for him, because a man of his perceived stature didn’t travel alone, and these, convinced they had worked for him for years, took care of the details on his behalf.  Less than an hour passed between arriving on Midgard and settling into a hot bath in his suite.  His ‘staff’ had already dispersed, going back to their lives with no memory of how they’d spent their afternoon. 

He fell to brooding, of course, because that was what he did much of the time anyway, even when he wasn’t recovering from a forced marriage to his misbegotten, dim-witted, _already_ unfaithful brother.  It made his head hurt this time, though, and so he took a very thorough bath, not scrubbing himself pink, but taking care of every detail, trying to distract himself.  By the time he sprawled on the obscenely luxurious bed, propping himself up on enough pillows to make his bed on Asgard look barren and monastic, his nails were perfect, his skin was glowing, and his hair smelled of some rare flower that was probably quivering on the edge of extinction in a jungle somewhere.

That done, he had nothing else to do.  There were no schemes or plans to see to; he’d only ended up on Midgard because that was the last place he’d gone using the secret passage hidden in his chambers.  It was still set for the middle of nowhere, and that was where he’d ended up.  In the desert, all roads lead to LA, so of course he’d ended up in Los Angeles.

So here he was. 

Well.

He watched television, because it usually amused him to see what passed for culture here.

He read all of the books in the suite’s small library, even though they were almost all reference books of some length.

He dressed and redressed himself, conjuring various outfits, and thinking of going out and amusing himself among the mortals.

He changed his form, became a Jotun (briefly), a Vanir, a woman, a Boston Terrier -- and went back through them again.

He couldn’t shake the growing hollowness in his chest, or decide whether it was physical or the price of sentiment.

He decided that he was dying, and that Thor would eventually find him here, wasted away to nothing, dead amongst the unbelievably high thread count pillows.

He reminded himself that he wasn’t thinking about Thor right now, thank you very fucking much.  Or about how Thor had kissed both him and that Vanir whore at his wedding.

On that note, he had the hotel send up the most expensive wine they could find, because he had no idea what passed for excellent wine here, and ended up draining the bottle in one long gulp.  It was like water.

He fidgeted, and told himself that he didn’t fidget, damn it.  It was beneath him.

He looked out the wide windows, watching the lights of the city come up and flicker with the constant, restless motion of the lives lived beneath them.

And that hollowness gnawed at him until he gave up and admitted what it was:  he was too far away from Thor, and the bond between them was strained, stretched thin. 

He could feel the anxiety blooming inside him now, sinking razor hooks into his flesh. 

He knew himself well enough to know that he could withstand this feeling.  He could have his freedom, as long as he didn’t mind feeling like this for the rest of eternity.  Unless Thanos found him and gave him something worse to worry about, which was going to hurt Thor every bit as much as it did him. 

There was a twist of agony in his chest at that thought, something that could have been physical or metaphysical or emotional, not that he cared to analyze it.  Safety, it seemed, was a relative thing.

 _Fuck_.

In the end, he used the reflections of the many mirrors in the rooms to take him home again.  He emerged in his own bed chamber, and there found Thor in his bed, lying awake and reading one of his, Loki’s, books.  His lips were moving slightly as he read, which was an exceedingly bad habit when reading tomes of magic, and Loki could sense something unpleasant lurking under the bed already, something just now coming into focus in this world.  With an exasperated sigh, Loki banished it and went to pull the book from Thor’s hands.  One large hand shot out and closed around his wrist like a manacle.

“I would ask that, whatever your quarrel with me, you do not do this again,” Thor said.  His voice was quiet, but rough, as if he’d spent the last few hours of Asgard’s night yelling, or maybe being sick.  Loki realized that his brother had been suffering the same hollowness inside while he was gone.  And he was glad of it.

“I hate you,” Loki said conversationally, pulling free and putting the book back on his desk.

“Whatever pleases you,” Thor mumbled, already relaxing now that they were together again.

Loki glared at him, but it still wasn’t dawn yet here on Asgard, and he was tired, and he wasn’t going to let Thor deprive him of his own bed. 

“Shove over!” he ordered, but Thor wouldn’t, of course, and so he ended up just climbing over the big bastard to the free side of the bed.  He barely managed to get his shoes off before falling asleep.

In the morning, he found that Thor’s arm was wrapped him, their bodies pressed together for warmth, and that he was too comfortable to care.

That was as disturbing as anything else that had happened to him in the last year or so, and he let himself be chased away from such thoughts and back into sleep.  He was going to need his strength.

******

Two weeks later, by Midgardian standards, a group of Aesir warriors appeared in Central Park.  The witnesses were conflicted. On the one hand, the newcomers wore shiny armor and long capes like Thor; on the other, Loki had dressed like that too.  After a few minutes, the consensus shifted towards running away, and it was the fleeing crowds that drew the attention of the authorities.  The NYPD knew exactly who to call in case of a sudden outbreak of space Vikings, and within twenty minutes, Captain America and a swarm of SHIELD agents had arrived, backed up by every first responder the city of New York could muster. 

The representatives from Asgard seemed unimpressed.  Their leader, who Steve Rogers would later describe as “a lot like Thor, really, if Thor was a dark-haired, irritated woman”, introduced herself as Lady Sif.  She was there to present wergild in the name of Odin Allfather for the injuries suffered by the people of Midgard at the hands of Loki Odinson, Prince Consort of Asgard. 

To  SHIELD’s credit, enough people had been doing their homework on Norse history, mythology, and the glimpses they’d gotten into Asgardian culture to have answers in Cap’s earpiece right away:  wergild was an offering of goods and treasure made to settle grievances between two groups and prevent (more) bloodshed.  It was designed to bring peace.

It was not, however, going to involve turning Loki over to Midgard so that they could punish him.

When Steve dutifully brought that matter up, at the prompting of his superiors, Sif looked sad for him.  It must be a terrible thing to be such a valiant warrior, serving such idiotic masters.  “Loki Odinson is a subject of the Allfather, and will be suspect to Asgardian justice. However, in accordance with ancient law, we offer this wergild to assure peace between our realms.”

The wergild did consist of treasure – real, old-style treasure of precious metals and gems – and a group of glowing objects which Sif said were healing stones, from which Midgard’s healers might learn much.  At a quick assessment, there was enough wealth there to save – or ruin – many of the world’s economies, and after almost an hour of spirited debate in far-off halls of government, during which the soldiers and warriors had little to do but stare at each other, the word came down to Nick Fury, and thus to Steve, that Midgard would be honored to accept.

Steve and Sif traded looks of mutual exasperation and understanding: the lot of a soldier was much the same the galaxy over.  “Where’s Thor?” he asked, walking back to her departure point with her. 

“At home,” she said.  “It is customary in these things for others to act on behalf of the families involved, to prevent more blood from being shed.”

“Well, please send him our regards, and let him know we’ll be happy to have him back any time,” he said, mostly out of politeness, though he’d genuinely liked the big guy, once they’d stopped fighting over Loki.

“I will,” she said, grasping his forearm.  “Farewell, Captain.”

“Ma’am,” he said, before the light came and blurred her upwards and out of existence.

Back at SHIELD Headquarters, Nick Fury already had a press release out stating that, yes, SHIELD personnel had been involved, no, there’d been no violence of any kind, yes, those guys looked like Thor (and Loki), and no, SHIELD had nothing at all to say about all the shiny stuff in the boxes that were all over CNN right now.   Then he told everyone in earshot that he didn’t want to be disturbed until after he talked to Captain America, and slammed his office door.

The political fallout had already begun, but damned if he’d be the one dealing with it.

Two minutes later, Tony Stark called him on his private line, the one that people like Stark weren’t supposed to know about, and started wheedling to get first look at those healing stones, on the grounds that if the Avengers _were_ a team, then he was definitely the team expert on “glowing shit”.

Fury hung up on him.

*******

Loki fled his marriage three more times over the next year, although he would have done something unspeakable, possibly involving knives, to anyone who suggested that he was ‘fleeing’ anything, thank you so much.

Each separation felt like a brush with death, but he couldn’t seem to help himself.

He vanished to Muspelheim, and to Svartalfheim, for brief and wretched stays which made him furious and miserable.  On his reluctant return, he passed these sentiments on to Thor, as if infecting him with a disease.

He went to Vanaheim the last time, as the first step of a scheme convoluted even by his standards.  Thor’s patience had vanished by then, however, and he arrived moments after Loki, physically picked him up and threw him over one shoulder, and then took them back to Asgard.  The whole thing took less than ten minutes.  The resulting fight was vicious, but brief, muted somewhat by the simple physical relief of being back together again.

There were, however, consequences to this sort of behavior.

Frigga sat them down for nearly nine hours of marriage counseling the next morning, with the promise that it could and would be repeated as often as necessary, perhaps every single day for the rest of their lives, until they learned to deal with their problems together.

Thusly, they were forced to settle down and figure out what being married to each other meant.

Being Consort to the Crown Prince was different from being Asgard’s spare prince, and no longer was Thor the most eligible prince in the history of the Nine Realms.  Everything they did now was constrained or changed or blocked by the fact of marriage.  Regardless of the lingering coldness between them, they were required to be together most of the time.  They rode to war together.  They hunted together. At feasts, at festivals, and on every formal occasion, they stood next to each other and were seen. 

They shared a bed, mostly because they’d been moved into a new suite with a single bed, and neither was going to give in and be the one who couldn’t handle it.  Unless they were unconscious, they rigidly stayed on their own sides of the bed.  After that, it was anyone’s guess whether they would end up in a tangle of limbs by morning or not.  Neither would talk about it.

The only real time they spent apart was while Loki was working on rebuilding the Bifrost, and that was the source of its own particular trouble.  When confronted with the complex and ancient magics that were involved in weaving the bridge, Loki was forced to a revelation of Thor’s true power; he did not understand how his brother/husband could have managed to break it at _all_.  Even though it was Mjölnir that struck the bridge, the fact that Thor could even wield such force was astonishing.  More than that, it _hurt_ Loki on some level, made him quiet and angry and… something else he couldn’t define.  He spent weeks out on the edge, sending for advisors or books or whatever else he needed, but not going back to sleep in Thor’s bed (somehow, it was never _their_ bed) or eat with him or make the petty conversation that was almost all that passed between them now.  He forbade Thor to visit him, claiming that the energies of the one who’d destroyed the Bifrost would taint the new work.

When he was done, when this new wound near his heart had been sealed over and buried like the rest, he had also deduced a means of rebuilding the bridge without having to destroy what remained.  Being a prince, he did not intend to do more of the work himself than necessary, but he had a plan, and if, in the end, a great deal of his own magic was required, the day to day work was done by others.  Asgard had never lacked for magicians, after all.  It was only seidr, the medium in which he preferred to work, that was derided as the realm of women and hedge witches.

When he went back to his life as Prince Consort, the distance between himself and Thor had grown. 

They bickered constantly.  Even on the best days, they couldn’t break through the tension.  Pretty clothes and new titles, an extra-large bed and assumptions that they were somehow one thing now, Prince and Consort, Thor and Loki, ThorandLoki, couldn’t bridge a history of lies and attempts to _hurt_ each other, to the point of death.  They needed time, and no pressure, and a respite.

They didn’t get it.  So they coped as best they could, though pride, and a fear of Frigga’s counseling sessions, kept them from asking for help.  They were not particularly well equipped to deal with emotions, and too raw to make the best decisions.

They weren’t all that good at coping, either, as things turned out. 

The oldest, simplest technique, one they’d relied on from their childhood, was avoiding each other, and that wasn’t possible anymore. They had been close to each other growing up, and were used to spending much time with each other, but those days, and the framework they’d spent them in, were gone now.

Marriage remained stubbornly, unforgivingly different from being brothers, or not-brothers, or whatever they had been before. 

For one thing, marriage, even an arranged marriage, came with a tangle of expectations and complications, and most of those came from other people.  If it was left up to them, they would have probably gone on as they always had: as brothers, forced into too much of each other’s company for any sort of peace to last between them. 

Everyone else seemed to expect romance between the two of them.

Romance wasn’t something either prince had much experience with, since having a steady supply of eager partners was something that came with the job.  Thor, in particular, had built up a reputation as a lover of both men and women, being as sexually omnivorous as most Aesir.  Loki had been less voracious but just as praised for his skills.  Really, though, how likely had either of them been to receive constructive criticism for their work?  Thor, at least, was a romantic at heart.  Loki had spent years trying to convince himself he didn’t have a heart, or that if he did it was blue, or otherwise not a metaphor for wretched sentiments.

Courtship after marriage is always awkward, and more so when neither party is even convinced it should happen.  They had been brothers, then enemies, and now what?  They’d both recently spent their time trying to stop, kill, maim, or at least seriously injure each other, and Thor had led Loki back home in a muzzle and chains.  Even sitting next to each other at a meal was awkward now, much less making small talk, even though neither of them really could stand keeping their mouth shut for more than a few minutes at a stretch.

Arguing over all their old battles at least gave them something to talk about together, at first.

Later they would expand that to arguing about _everything_.  It became the only way they could communicate at all, and they only needed an excuse.  Sharing rooms together, they found plenty of fuel for their endless squabbles, and sharing their lives together, they had ammunition for several all-out wars. 

The question of heirs was always the most fertile ground for discord between them.

It had been eventually decided that both men would at some point find women to bear them each children.  Hopefully, some of those children might marry each other, thus bringing their divergent heritages back into the house of Odin. It was the sort of vague, hand-waving scheme that the long-lived Aesir excelled at. Loki had laughed out loud upon first hearing the plan, but mostly that had been from relief that no one really expected him to shapeshift into a woman and bear the children himself.  He wasn’t even certain they knew he could do that, and he was delighted to keep that bit of information to himself. 

The actual heirs could come later, at some time in their almost limitless future, but taunting each other about the _mothers_ of those heirs was always a good way to get a fight started.  Rude speculation over any woman they spent any time with at all, from stable hands to healers to diplomats, would turn into even uglier words. Eventually, Loki only had to mention Sif’s name to spark fires in his brother’s eyes.  Used to being the one most deadly with words, Loki didn’t quite realize how good Thor had gotten at fighting back.

One fine afternoon, after Loki had asked if Sif knew she was being sized up as a broodmare, Thor had simply pushed him up against a wall and said one word, before turning his back on him and starting to walk out the door.  Behind him, Loki froze, before exploding in a rage so great he thought for an instant he’d gone blind.

“ _Svaðilfari_.”

The fight that followed was by all accounts one of the finest ever fought in Asgard.

The All-father was forced to step in around midnight, when the raging fires began to threaten the rest of the palace.

Odin was not amused.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Transition chapters: if there's a way to avoid them, no one's told me about it.


	3. It's alway about you, isn't it?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things get better. And worse.

“I did not give _birth_ to that fucking horse,” Loki growled again, wiping the sweat from his brow.  “You _know_ I summoned him as a joke, and yet that idiotic story keeps being thrown into my face over and over again!”

“It’s because you rise to the bait every time.  You leave an opening that is impossible to ignore,” Thor said complacently, throwing another charred wooden beam on the trash pile.  It threw up sparks when it landed, and Loki was compelled to use another ice spell to prevent yet another spot fire from springing up.

“You’d think that _fools_ would get tired of using the same old lines each time,” Loki grumbled, striking a glowing staff against another half-destroyed masonry wall and sending it all scraping and clattering towards the trash pile.

“An old and familiar weapon loses no value if it still strikes true,” Thor said, going to pour himself some water from the urn that Loki’s magic kept full of cold water.  It was perfect, and he gulped it down greedily, before dumping the rest of the urn over his head and shoulders.  Loki deliberately avoided watching drops roll slowly down over the curves and planes of Thor’s shirtless body.  He was not interested in such things.  Certainly not.

Curse him.

The last several days had been some of the longest of his life.

The Allfather had always had any number of clever ways to punish his sons; as boys, they’d lived in fear of his creativity.  This time, however, all he did was condemn them to spending more time with each other, and only with each other, as the two of them rebuilt the wing of the palace they had destroyed.   They had access to the advice of builders, and to any number of tools and materials, but the building site was covered by a large, impenetrable dome, which allowed in sunlight and weather but hid them from all other eyes, allowing no one in or out.  The two of them were to do all the work themselves, and most of it by hand. Food and supplies were passed through the dome, but they had no chance themselves of getting out.  The dome easily resisted all of Loki’s covert attempts to pierce it.  Thor didn’t even bother wasting his time.  Once the job was done, they would be released, and the faster that happened, the better.

It was not an unjust punishment, considering the damage they had done, both to the building and the people who had been in it at the time.

If they hadn’t been trapped in the dome alone together, it might have been tolerable.  As it was, they had no shields against each other, no distractions, and no really compelling reasons to show mercy, except that they were married and bound together for the rest of their considerable lives.   They fought like it was all they had between them.

But Thor remembered love, and trust, and brotherhood.  He wondered if Loki did, and if it could be enough. 

Slowly, they worked their way through the rubble, salvaging what they could and destroying the rest.  Both of them understood destruction the best.  That they could do themselves, without any input for the world outside their dome.  That they mostly did alone, working on opposite sides of the structure, using their talents to clear the site within a few days.

Then the rebuilding came: slow and painstaking, with multiple false starts.  In this, they were required to work together, each bringing different skill to the problems they faced.  They lacked a great deal of specific knowledge, but they were brought craftsmen to speak with through the dome, and given books to consult.  They made do.

And as the building began to grow again, as they worked more closely every day, something precarious began to shift between them. 

It didn’t keep them from squabbling.  Every major decision seemed to require a torrent of harsh words, but the bitter edges were wearing off.  Maybe they were just tired.

Or maybe it was just inevitable.

One night, as they sat close to their fire, finishing up a meal, Loki asked him a question, realizing that it had never actually come up before between them. 

“Whose idea was it that we marry?  The old man’s?”

“No,” Thor said, tearing another great chunk from the leg he was eating.

Loki paused.  “Yours?”

“Mother’s, really,” he said, washing it down with ale.  “She said it was the only way we’d both be happy.”

The matter of fact way he said that, without adding any soulful looks or honeyed lilt to his words, struck Loki, and he stared at Thor across the fire.  “And you agreed with her?”

“Yes,” Thor said, in the flat same tone.  He wasn’t looking at him, and Loki suddenly wished he was.

“Why?” 

His husband turned and fixed pale eyes on him, blue washed out by the firelight, and watched him for a moment, waiting for the inevitable cutting words.  When none came, he threw his bone in the fire and stood up, wiping his hands on his pants.  “I already told you once.  It’s a pity you didn’t listen.”

Then he walked away, leaving Loki to himself and his own thoughts.

In the morning, Thor had little to say to him, though it seemed that he was more tired than anything else.  As the day progressed, he rose only weakly to Loki’s taunts, and eventually started shrugging them off entirely, as if he’d miraculously gained immunity.  That wasn’t true, though; Loki could see when he struck a nerve, but Thor seemed to lack the energy to respond in kind.  This was new.

Thor was by no means a stupid man, and though he lacked Loki’s verbal prowess, so did virtually everybody else, and Loki could not honestly hold that against him.  He was a warrior of such physical prowess that he lived always on the edges of the berserkergang, but he fought the war with his husband mostly on Loki’s terms.  Oh, they bled each other certainly, from time to time, but then they always had; even as small boys they had sported bruises and broken bones, courtesy of each other.  Still, most of their battles now consisted of words, and although Thor had never in his life backed down from a fight, perhaps it wore on him more than on Loki. 

The younger prince considered that as he prepared their meal that night.  They took the job of cooking in turns, mostly to avoid fighting over it and thus eventually starving.  It was one of the many small compromises they’d worked out during their marriage without speaking of them, such as the way they held themselves under truce in Frigga’s presence, or before the high ambassadors to the court.  Their fights might be common knowledge, but with a glance or two, they’d carved out small neutral spaces where they refrained, mostly for the sake of others.  It was strange how easily they could work together, when needs be. 

Mostly they did not.  Thor stood in the face of the storm of words with his shoulders hunched, but he never backed down.

Loki watched Thor eat, and then stared mostly at the fire after his brother caught him doing it.

The next few days went much the same.

Loki found himself forced into reflection, something he loathed and yet had spent much time at, thanks to various circumstances.

Thor didn’t seem to notice.

They made more progress in several days of silence than they had in weeks before.  The framing was finished and the walls started to go up quickly after that.  The combination of quiet and efficiency unnerved Loki to no end.

Thor was not quiet.  Nothing about him was quiet; he was constitutionally incapable of it.

That was a fundamental truth Loki had lived with all his life.

In the deep stillness before one dawn, something occurred to Loki that definitely should have before.  In fact, he flushed with shame when he realized it, and lay there in his furs and blankets by the banked fire, staring at the darkness overhead and feeling like an idiot.

It wasn’t that he thought it would really make all that much difference between him and Thor, because he really didn’t think it meant very much, but he had a hard time believing that he had forgotten about it. 

He really, really wanted to stay under his covers.  They had been trapped together for weeks, and autumn was beginning to tip towards winter.  The night air was truly bitter now, especially in the hours just before dawn, and even he could feel its sting. Being a frost giant didn’t help unless he let himself go blue, which, as the years settled his Aesir glamour on his mind and body more securely, was harder to do.  Habit and familiarity shaped magic as well as willpower and symbols; it just took longer.

Moreover, he really didn’t want to startle Thor awake in the middle of the night as a Jotun.  It just seemed like a generally bad idea.

Before he firmly decided to get up, his body started doing it for him.  With a gesture, he was clad in much warmer clothes, and a moment later he was throwing back his furs, despite the protests from his brain that they should really think this through a bit harder.  

The bitter jealousy he’d felt when his seidr-drunken haze had been pierced by the specter of Thor’s expected infidelity still haunted him.  He’d told himself it hardly mattered whether Thor was faithful or not.  The terms of the marriage even required that they be unfaithful long enough to get heirs.  It should only have been a matter of injured pride over such a flagrant thing being done in open court, on their wedding day, right in front of him.  Instead, he’d been jealous and hurt, and the hurt had never quite succumbed to the logic he’d attempted to smother it with.  It had quietly festered, even as it bewildered him.

So why was he doing this?  Did he really enjoy poking at barely-closed wounds?

Apparently so.                                                                             

There was a dark bundle of furs and thunder god on the other side of the fire, as far away from Loki’s bedding as it was possible to get while staying near the warmth.  Taking a thick fur with him, Loki walked over to it, knowing that Thor was too experienced a warrior not to wake up to the sound of footsteps.  He didn’t say anything, though, just watching Loki come and sit close by him instead.  He was wrapped up sufficiently that only his eyes were visible, catching the limited firelight.

They sat in silence for a few minutes as the younger brother tried to think of a way to phrase his question that didn’t sound hopelessly awkward.  There turned out not to be one, so he went ahead anyway.

“What did you mean by saying I was your ‘heart’s desire’?”  It didn’t come out as defensive or aggressive as he’d thought it might, which was nice.  He liked having some semblance of control over his tongue.

There was a pause that Loki couldn’t read into, which made him wonder if he should’ve offered some context.  It had been more than two years now since the day Odin had told him they were to marry, and he’d asked Thor what he’d hoped to get out of it.

Thor responded quietly, and not particularly helpfully.  “Which word is giving you trouble, then?”

Loki snorted.  “Both of them.  Together.  In reference to me.”

“Are you so surprised?” 

“Yes, Thor.  I’m surprised that you called me your heart’s desire less than a day after I tried to kill you and you dragged me back in chains.”

“Then you haven’t been paying attention,” Thor said, with what might have been a smile, or might not have been.  It was hard to tell.

It was against his principles to admit to it, but he didn’t understand. “Meaning?”

“Will it make your heart glad to know that I first knew I loved you years ago, before my coronation and Jotunheim and Midgard and the fall that took you from me?” Thor snapped. “Will it sharpen your tongue even further?  Then be happy, and leave me to whatever sleep I can yet find this morning.”

It did not make his heart glad, and it seemed to freeze his tongue in his mouth. 

Stupid, traitorous tongue.

How could Thor have loved him?  How could Loki not have realized it?

How could it not have struck him until now that Thor had been in earnest when he spoke those words?

How could he have been so focused on the power and safety of belonging to Asgard now, beyond all means of changing it, that he hadn’t asked himself what Thor was getting out of this?  The bond between them was as strong as ever, even now after years of bitterness, giving them both strength.  Thor would never be able to share that with anyone else now.  Had he loved that mortal woman?  Did he love Sif, or any of a dozen other unwed women who he held in high regard?  This gift of himself, of the strength of Asgard, was gone from his hands now, never to be offered to another.  If some large part of Loki was gleeful at that, the rest of him thought that perhaps Thor should never have been asked to give up so much.  Not for him. 

Not for his traitorous brother, who wasn’t really his brother, but was still somehow always his brother, even though they were husbands now. 

He understood the point behind incest taboos, and they didn’t really apply here, but in place of shame he had keenly felt bewilderment.  Why him?  Why Thor?

Because his parents, such as they were, had wanted him safe (and he had been so far), and because Thor _loved_ him.

Or had loved him, before their blessed nuptials.

_This_ was why he had always loudly despised sentiment.  This right here.

His head hurt now.

“You’re thinking too much.”

He looked down at Thor, who had propped himself up on one elbow.  His brother was still frowning, but most of the anger behind it was gone.

“It’s what I do,” Loki said with a soft smile.

“Well, stop it, and come down here.  It’s cold, and I’m still tired,” Thor rumbled a bit grudgingly, extending a hand.

It seemed like a bad idea, but then, Loki had had untold numbers of those before, and he still lived to tell the tales.  He let Thor pull him down beneath the covers with him, summoning the rest of his own covers with a crooked finger as the two of them settled down.  A warm arm circled his waist, pulling him close.

“Do you truly think to snuggle with a Frost Giant for warmth?”

“Frost Giant or no, we were warm enough all the times you climbed into my bed as a child.  We’ll make do,” Thor said, his lips close enough to Loki’s neck to stir the fine hairs there. 

“Mmmhmm,” Loki said skeptically.  It was the most devastating comeback he could make, without actually being awake for it.

In the morning, Thor woke to find Loki gone.

But it was alright this time, because he was up making pancakes for them, and somehow that made everything else just fine for awhile.

*******

The new wing of the palace did not quite match the old, and it would later develop a noticeable tilt after a few seasons of rain.  The princes would be called back and put in charge of fixing it all, this time with skilled teams of engineers and builders under their command.  Eventually it would require a great deal of Loki’s power and Thor’s strength to right their repairs, but it was done.  Despite his grumbling, Loki was pleased when things stopped rolling off his desk every time he set them down.  Thor took up an interest in structural engineering afterwards, somewhat to his own surprise, and began a building program across the city.

Loki found himself less and less willing to pick fights with Thor.  They still squabbled, of course, as they had done since they were old enough to walk, but there was increasingly little venom in it.  The question of who might carry their future heirs stopped being brought up at all, a ban which was forcibly extended to their father’s councilors after a fairly disastrous meeting.  Loki had had a hand in making it worse than it might have been, of course.  With Thor an increasingly unappealing target, he’d turned his restless energies elsewhere; the councilors, full of pride and secrets, hadn’t even been a challenge.  He hadn’t even had to turn them against each other beforehand.  After they’d been set up, it only took a few casual words to set them fighting each other, until the All-Father himself had forbidden them to discuss it further.

In the absence of spiteful words, however, the silence grew.  They let it, at first, until it became almost worse than the fighting had been.  Their parents kept them busy, hoping that the extra work, done together, would at least tire them out enough to defuse the tension between them.  The princes of Asgard, or the Crown Prince and Prince-Consort of Asgard, as the heralds would have them, were sent out on diplomatic mission after diplomatic mission, somewhat to the dismay of several of their hosts.  Initially it was the squabbling, occasional property damage, and utter lack of progress which made the princes unwelcome, but as time passed, the reasons shifted.

Whatever their current status, they had been brothers for longer than they’d been anything else, and for most of that time, they had been a team together against the worlds.  Their nerves raw and their feelings tender now, it was surprisingly easy to fall back into comfortable old patterns.  Thor was the anvil, uncompromising, and Loki was the hammer, maneuvering the unwary and shaping the situation until foreign diplomats found themselves with Thor at their back, just waiting for them to agree with Asgard’s every last request.  The Silvertongue and the Thunderer were known elements, and expected, but the combination of the two was somehow eternally a surprise. 

Odin was smug, watching them grow easier together.  The stream of diplomatic successes didn’t hurt, either.

Frigga noticed a certain wistfulness about her sons as time passed and the fighting died down.  She could see it in the way they looked at each other when they couldn’t be caught out, and in the hesitations that had grown up between them.  She believed that the two of them would come together, even without Asgard’s bond, but it would take time.  This quarrelsome peace between them had been hard-won. 

The more she thought about it, the more a holiday began to seem like a good idea.  The two of them had been through a great deal of stress, and while the extra work had helped them learn to cooperate, it had been a heavy load to carry.  A vacation, with nothing to look after except their own pleasures, should help ease their nerves.  There was any number of places they could go.  They couldn’t be too far apart, obviously, but that didn’t mean they had to stay at each other’s side constantly.

She found herself consulting a model of Yggdrasil and thinking over places her sons might go.  Surely there must be someplace in the realms that could keep both of them entertained for awhile. 

Hmn.

*******

Thor came back to the command post covered in blood, some of it his own, and as angry as any of them had ever seen him.  His mouth was a hard, straight line, and the air around him crackled, the smell of ozone mixing with the rotten metal stink of blood.

His com-set had died the way most electronics did inside that darkness, and therefore no one had heard him warning them all to back off, not to send anyone else in.  There were, therefore, 4 SHIELD agents and 34 Texas National Guardsmen dead now, who shouldn’t have been.  With luck, most of them would stay dead, but luck didn’t seem to favor them today.

Thor didn’t blame anyone else, and certainly not himself; he’d seen too much blood shed over his long, long life to create guilt when there was only misfortune.  That didn’t keep him from being furious over it all.

He had not been to Midgard for some time, and although his friends and shieldmates were still here, there were many new faces around them, some of whom had clearly not believed that the Thor Odinson with a permanent reserved slot in the Avengers was actually Thor, God of Thunder, Crown Prince of Asgard, and utterly terrifying figure of blood-soaked wrath.  Some weapons were drawn as Thor stormed his way through to the on-site command center, and those weapons were immediately slapped down by the more knowledgeable.  One did not fuck around with thunder gods.

The command staff knew he was coming, and the medics were waiting on him the second he came through the doors.  They knew better than actually to touch him without permission, but they were ready the second he would allow them.  The path he’d taken through the prefab building was already being sampled and sterilized, just in case.

“Let no one else approach it,” he said by way of greeting, “unless I am there.”

“Why not?” Fury asked.  “You know something we don’t?”

“The fight, and the dead we left behind us, have only strengthened it, I fear.  It needs no more aid from us.” 

The chairs in the room were specially designed to cope with people of various genetic quirks and planetary origins, with or without armor and weapons, sitting down heavily in them with a sigh, and the one Thor chose submitted to its fate without a squeak or groan.  Chalk another triumph of engineering up for Stark Industries.

Fury steepled his fingers and gazed at Thor over them.  “I’ve got about twenty square miles of total darkness out there at noon on the Texas prairie, and what’s shaping up on surveillance to be the truckstop of the living dead.  So far it’s looking like a B-grade horror movie to me.  You gonna enlighten us?”

He nodded towards one of the many monitors set up around the room.  Many of them were showing images from inside the containment area, which was as dark as midnight on a clear, starry night inside.  Other than by simply existing in a confined, sharply defined area, there wasn’t much about the darkness that seemed extraordinary, except that it was possible to stand in full sunlight and then plunge into deep night with one step.  There was nothing to keep that from happening, either: no barrier of any kind.  The darkness extended up several miles, and it was remarkably hard to see anything inside it, unless you were already there:  satellites couldn’t pierce it, but all sorts of surveillance gear worked just fine if they were positioned inside it, right up until they fell apart or stopped working.  There was a steady stream of people just working on replacing the equipment now.  Everything inside for any serious length of time seemed to die before its time. 

The monitors currently showed a very small town or really large truckstop – it was honestly hard to tell which – near the edge of the darkness, which mostly spread over open ground.  The truckstop was on the main highway, which had been blocked off to traffic miles away by now, and a smaller road split off at the junction, heading out towards a few ranches far out in the distance. 

Thor’s fight had taken place at the Flying Q Fuel Ranch, which was a fine example of the kind of roadside haven which normally appealed only to those low on gas, low on sleep, or on the actual brink of starvation.  By some quirk of public utilities, most of the lights were still on, including the neon lights promising various services and the large pink and white cross on the hillside promising eternal salvation.  There were still a few cars and a number of semis parked in the lot or at the pumps, which must have been pretty normal, and a number of corpses scattered across the blacktop, which probably were not.

In fact, the ruins of buildings, trucks, and people covered much of the parking lot now. Some of the cinderblock buildings were wreckage at the moment, as were some of the dead, splattered across the pavement. 

Some of the corpses were moving.

“It’s a goddamned zombie movie, is what it is,” Tony Stark said, coming in and taking a seat.  He looked as battered as he felt.  After 30 minutes on-site, his sealed armor had started shorting out on him, the systems degrading until he’d been lucky to make it out into daylight before losing all power.

“I don’t know that word, ‘zombie’,” Thor said, “but these are draugar, the walking dead.”

He added nothing to that for several moments, as their attention was drawn back to the monitors, where something large and dark and of no definite shape came out from a building and moved with strange grace across the parking lot, towards a small cluster of feebly moving corpses.  This darkness seemed to grow, or maybe just grow denser, for several moments, as the cameras tried to adjust, zooming in and out and changing filters.  When it moved again, back towards the building, there was nothing left behind but a small pile of shattered bones, the marrow sucked out, and a pool of clotted blood.

A nearby body stirred and rose to its feet to follow, moving with terrible clumsiness across the asphalt. 

The primary camera failed, and back up views jittered across the screens until the best alternative was found.  By the time it stabilized again, after mere seconds, the parking lot was still again.

“And you want to tell us what the _fuck_ that was?”

The only answer was a heavy thud and a flurry of activity across the table.  Fury, Stark, and almost everyone else in the room froze for a moment, unsure whether they had really just watched Thor pass out, his head hitting the table as he slid to the floor.  It seemed so… out of character for him.

The medics, not knowing Thor well enough to be unnerved, were on him instantly, doing what they did best.

“That can’t be good,” Steve Rogers said, just coming into the room and going right to Thor’s side, where he helped lift the Asgardian onto the conference table.   Aids scrambled to save equipment and paperwork from the splash of gore that came with him when he was rolled on top of it.  Thor took great, gasping breaths, but his eyes didn’t open, and his body shook with spasms that rocked the table.

“Oh, it’s even worse than that, I assure you, Captain,” Loki said, quite suddenly in the same room with them all.  Dark energies still clung to him from his passage, evaporating into the air, and a sharp, bitterly cold gust of wind took their breath away.

This time, when the weapons were raised, no one objected.

******

Loki generally liked to make an entrance, but he wasn’t interested at the moment.  He entered the room through the reflection in the large flatscreen on the wall behind Fury and then waved one hand, pushing all the chairs, equipment, and people away from the table and Thor.  It was a selective spell, and none of the medics was moved away from their patient.  With a leap, Loki was kneeling on the table top next to his brother, delicately raising an eyelid to peer underneath, feeling his pulse.

“Bring hot water and clean cloths,” he ordered the medics in general, “and let none of the spilled blood remain behind.”

They obeyed him immediately, without questions, running off to accomplish their given tasks.

“If you don’t mind, we’re having a meeting here,” Fury said, the mildness of his words in no way reflected in his expression.

Loki didn’t even bother to look up.  “If you wish him to die, then by all means keep trying to interrupt.  Afterwards I will rip your tongue out myself.”

His voice was quite even and almost pleasant, but his eyes and hands were on Thor, his fingertips leaving soft, luminous green trails behind them that soon sank into his brother’s flesh.  He started humming under his breath, the sound fading and growing rhythmically, but never quite resolving into a melody.

After struggling for some time against the invisible shield that kept him back, Stark stopped trying surreptitiously to get closer to the table, and chose to take a seat.  There didn’t seem to be that much else to do at the moment but watch Loki work.  Until now, no one had seen Loki since the attack at New York, and Thor hadn’t said much about him on this visit.  He certainly didn’t look like he’d been spending any time wasting away in a dungeon somewhere.  If anything, he seemed to be doing quite well.  He looked fit and healthy, without the sickly pallor and maniacal gleam in his eye, and he was wearing a suit that was well out of the budget of anyone else present, except Thor, probably, and Tony himself, who owned a couple from the same tailors.  He looked sleek and powerful in a way the Midgardians understood immediately.  Gold on his fingers, at his throat, in his ears, and cuffing back the long mass of his dark hair only seemed to make him exotic, perhaps alluring, instead of alien and uncanny.

Asgardian justice had apparently worked out pretty good for Loki, which comforted exactly no one who remembered his last visit, other Norse demigods excluded.

Loki did, however, seem to know what he was doing right now, and that also gave him power.  The water and towels arrived quickly, and he had the medics gently cleaning the blood off Thor’s skin.  There were ugly bruises underneath, and Loki touched each with his fingertips, leaving behind a glowing stain that took the bruise with it when it faded, leaving clean flesh behind.  Most of Thor’s injuries were cleared away in fairly quickly order, with the white towels turning black and red before being tucked away into hazmat bags.  They pulled his boots and bracers off and removed his belts; those went into the bags too before a word from Loki had them set aside elsewhere.

Loki carefully cleaned Thor’s face, making sure his eyelashes and beard were free of blood.  All the while he worked with his hands, the tuneless humming continued as he focused intensely.  The green faded into his brother’s skin after a minute or two, leaving only one spot that still glowed brightly.  It was an unhealthy green, the color of sickness and bile, and it was in the meat of Thor’s shoulder, underneath his armor. 

“Captain,” Loki said, without glancing up. “If you would make ready to help us.”

“Sure,” Steve said, suddenly free to come closer, which struck Tony as unfair.  He’d have been happy to help Thor out, assuming that was really what Loki wanted him for.  Also, it gave Steve a much better view of exactly what was going on than Tony had managed so far.

Loki leaned further down and spoke clearly, his voice raised for clarity.  “Thor,” he said, brushing the hair from his brother’s brow.  “Thor, I know you want to sleep, and I promise you can soon, but I have to get your armor off now.  It’s going to hurt, but I have to see beneath it before I can heal you.  Will you help me?”

Thor made no sound, but there was a fluttering under his eyelids. 

“Thor, can you hear me?” Loki tried again. 

Craning his neck, Tony could see why they’d need the big guy’s help; the breast plate shouldn’t be a problem, but the mail coat underneath would come off easier if they didn’t have to hold Thor up at the same time.

“Thor?” 

The golden prince’s eyes didn’t open, but he managed to whisper something that seemed to relieve Loki and startle Steve at the same time.  Tony shot him a look, but Steve was too busy to notice. 

“Sit up for me,” the dark prince coaxed, and with an enormous effort and considerable help from Steve and Loki, Thor levered his way up, his face contorted into a terrible grimace, still not opening his eyes.  Steve held him up, letting Thor lean into his chest, panting, as Loki made quick work of the rest of the armor.  Thor was quiet as they undressed him, though obviously in considerable pain, until the gambeson underneath his mail was peeled away; a thick layer of skin over his shoulder came away with it, sloughing from his flesh, and he made a low, pained sound, as if he couldn’t manage any more than that.

A stench of rotten meat filled the room.

Loki cursed in a language none of them recognized, but he moved quickly, sticking one hand in a basin of steaming water until it picked up his signature glow.  Then he wet a couple of towels with it and laid them, dripping and hot, over the open wound.  Thor hissed, but that was the last sound he made while his brother worked on him.  He passed out again a few moments later, leaving Steve to hold up all of his weight. 

Steve could hold him, and he’d seen some equally terrible wounds before, but the smell was hard to handle.  It was a fresh wound, but it stank like weeks of rot.

Somebody in a uniform across the room bent over and neatly vomited into an open laptop case.

Loki’s magic, on the other hand, didn’t have any scent at all, but it seemed to carve the stench from the air as the medics switched out the magic-laden towels while he used his fingertips to prod the blackened flesh.  He was gentler than Tony had ever seen him, and it was odd, beyond bizarre, really, to see him be that careful with Thor. 

Maybe Asgardian justice had something going for it after all.

“Ah,” Loki said quietly, and then he pulled his hands away, something small and black and reeking in his palm.  “You’ll be wanting this,” he said, “but do not think of touching it.”

“Not a problem, sir,” one of the medics said, taking it with heavy gloves and depositing it into an airtight container, which went into another container along with the gloves.

It didn’t really take that long, all things considered, for Loki to finish healing his brother.  It took a good deal of his energy, though, that was certain.  He was visibly shaking by the time he’d chased the poison from Thor’s flesh, letting the thunder god’s own considerable healing properties kick in.

“Can we take him to the infirmary?” Steve asked, his tone kind.  “You should go too, at least to get something to eat or drink.”

Whatever else Loki might be up to, there was no doubt he’d just done his damndest to fix his brother up, and that deserved some kind of respect.  Sort of.

“No, there is little time.  He will wake soon, though, and be thirsty,” Loki said with a sigh.  “It would not go amiss to have something brought for him here.”

He slid down from the table, moving less like an exotic prince now and more like an old man.  One of the medics got him a chair, and he sank down into it before waving a hand at them all, lifting whatever glamour had made them so cooperative. The other spell had apparently been lifted as well, and there was a small rush as people moved to clean the table up or reclaim their place at it.  Loki seemed drained, and he watched them without much apparent interest.

“Now,” Fury said, sounding commendably unruffled, “how about you tell me what the hell is going on?”

“Someone has woken a _draugr_ , and its power grows,” the dark prince said, as if it should have been obvious to them all. “But let us wait until Thor wakes, for he has seen more of this one than any of you.”

 

******

 

Thor slept for about an hour, and the command center tried to reset itself and go on as if there was not a thunder god sprawled across the conference table and a chaos god slumping in a nearby chair.  It was suggested that food and drink might be a generally helpful idea, and so that was brought in.  Loki seemed to regain his energy, but he wasn’t at all talkative, and they eventually just worked around the two of them.  At least Thor didn’t snore.

Tony went to look after his suit and get his secondary suit ready.  On the way back, he came across Steve, still in his uniform, sitting in a quiet spot out of the way, slumped back with a cup of coffee cradled in both hands.  Tony settled down next to him because it seemed like as good an idea as any.

“Anything new?” Steve asked.

“Nope. They tightened up the perimeter and everybody’s just waiting until the Wonder Twins in there start telling us what’s going on.”

“What?”

“Clint and his girlfriend are sneaking around in the dark, doing spy stuff.”

“You know she’ll hurt you if she hears you calling her nicknames again.”

“I live an exciting life,” Tony said, shrugging.  “Bruce still can’t get within ten miles of here without the big guy starting to push his way out.  He says the closer he gets, the worse his control gets, like that place is rage central or something.  He’s staying out for now.”

“Hopefully we won’t need him on this one.” 

Tony nodded, but there wasn’t much to say to that.  Hopefully they didn’t need the big green rage monster to help take down the fucking zombies.  Yep. 

“By the way,” he started, fishing around for a change of subject to something less surreal, “what did Thor say that shook you up earlier?  When he was talking to Loki?”

“Didn’t shake me up,” Steve snorted, before draining his cup. “Just surprised me.”

He didn’t add anything to that, because torturing Tony by withholding information was becoming his favorite pastime.  It wasn’t really nice, but then sometimes it made Tony do that thing where his eyes got all big and pathetic and he didn’t even know it, and it was fucking adorable, even though Steve was reasonably confident that he wouldn’t admit that anyone even under torture.

“And so…” Tony prompted, unaware of his impending adorableness.

“Yep.”

Maybe it was the stress of nearly dying earlier as his life support systems and HUD cut out, leaving him choking for air and flying blind up until his crash.  Maybe he was on to Steve, and humoring him for nefarious reasons of his own.  It was hard to tell. However, the great and powerful Iron Man lasted through another full two minutes of stubborn silence before his insatiable curiosity stripped him of all dignity.

“Steeeeve,” he whined, “c’mon, give it up.  Was it terrible and embarrassing?  I bet it was.  Are you scarred for life?  Isn’t that the kind of thing you want to share with your buddy?  Your best buddy?”

He didn’t say please, but then, when did he ever?  Steve stored away the wide eyes and nearly wobbly lip in his memory, and considered it payment received.

“He called Loki his husband,” Steve said, without embellishment.

“And that freaked you out?” Tony asked, looking cheated.  “’Cause you know, that’s legal most places now, so…”

“Listen to me, Tony.  Thor, our friend and fellow Avenger, called Loki, our favorite murderous psychopath and his _own brother_ , ‘husband’.  Doesn’t that strike you as a little peculiar?” Steve said with terrible patience.

“Oh.”

“Yeah.”

They were quiet for a few moments while Tony’s brain processed this new information, tested it, hypothesized outcomes, and finally stored it all under _Thor: More Things I Didn’t Want To Know_.  “Okay,” he said, “so that’s weird, and maybe it’s like, end of the world weird, but is it really weirder than the whole zombie apocalypse thing we’ve got going today?”

“No.”

“Well, okay then.  I can deal with that.”

 


	4. From Good to Bad to More Bad

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Thor has an idea, and Loki doesn't approve.

In all of Thor’s long history of terrible injuries and their aftermath, he could not recall feeling both so terrible and so wonderful at the same time.  His shoulder hurt like fire, and all of his joints seemed to ache in sympathy with it, throbbing in time with his heart.  However, he could also feel traces of Loki’s magic all over his body, intimate and laden with care for him.  Even though their marriage had changed a great deal since their forced lesson in housing reconstruction, their new companionship hadn’t exactly translated to anything physical.  Excruciating awkwardness, yes; physical displays of affection, no.   Their feelings had gone from complicated to miserably tangled.

This undisputable _proof_ that Loki cared for him made his skin tingle in a way that soothed his hurts, and he had threaded his fingers through Loki’s as soon as he could and held his hand, wanting the touch.  He kept it under the table, where no one could see them in case it bothered Loki.  Thor was happy either way.

He finished draining his fourth gallon jug of water and stretched out in his chair, smirking at nothing in particular.  His knees kept bouncing under the table. There was terrible violence in his recent past, and more of it coming in the near future, enough to keep a current of energy running through his bones, making him restless.  Regardless of the seriousness of the situation, there was a fight coming soon, and he could not help but relish it.  It was a fundamental part of his nature. 

He really wasn’t paying as much attention to the conversation around the conference table as he should, though.  There wasn’t much excuse, though, as he’d sat through a hundred meetings less interesting than this as a prince.  It just seemed hard to focus with Loki’s hand in his and Loki’s seidr still rolling through his blood.

On top of that, he was having difficulty understanding how Loki could still be sitting here beside him, explaining things to Fury and the rest of them, especially since he was being called on to repeat himself, something his husband usually enjoyed less than, say, having his bones broken.  The fact that he hadn’t yet set any of the Avengers on fire, or shoved any of them screaming through a portal into deep space, was telling; Loki was exhausted.  Under these circumstances, his tolerance for idiots was greater, but the disaster was going to be all that much greater when he snapped. Thor tried to pay closer attention, to prevent bloodshed if nothing else.

He sympathized with his husband when he caught up with the conversation.  The whole thing was all pretty simple, really, no matter how complicated the Midgardians seemed to want to make it.

Draugar weren’t exactly these “zombies”, even though the Midgardian definition of that word was really vague.  Alive?  Dead?  Fast?  Slow?  Thor couldn’t make much sense of it all, but it didn’t match draugar all that well.  Draugar were not mindless, but cunning, and vicious, possessed of magic, and often shapeshifters.  They could summon darkness from the air to bring them comfort and strength, and they devoured everything that lived or had lived, sometimes spreading their undeath among those who were strong enough to take it on themselves.  In time, everything around them, everything beneath the darkness, would die, each living thing feeding it, and every non-living thing simply surrendering to entropy and decay.

The ‘headshots’ Tony spoke of so enthusiastically might work on the weak or the newly reborn, but against the old one, the father of these new draugar, it would be as nothing. 

If they left it alone, it would feed on everything it could find, and the darkness would grow, and the draugr’s strength would grow with it.  If it could bring Thor low already, what might it do if they gave it time?

Despite being told these things, the Midgardians seemed determined to make things difficult.

The ways of fighting such a thing were few and as old as time, but the warriors here still insisted that their technology would work, and Loki, to Thor’s surprise, had somehow taken it upon himself to explain, in increasingly irritable detail, why it wouldn’t.  Not with the old one.

They could not banish the darkness with beams of light, nor use their biological weapons to strike the draugr dead. Most of their weapons would churn up the earth and render it beyond recognition, or scorch it until there was nothing but ashes and bare rock left.  That seemed the most promising method, but all of their war machines would be as vulnerable to the effects of the area as anything else.  Drones had fared badly inside, losing contact within a minute or less.  Would a rocket or shell do better or worse?  And in the wreckage left behind, could they even find enough to know whether they’d been successful or not?

The weak draugar would be destroyed without doubt.  There was also a more than fair chance that the first draugr, the oldest and most potent, would be injured, perhaps killed.  If they didn’t kill it, though, it could simply shift its shape away into something small and infinitely elusive, and escape to bide its time elsewhere, better informed now of what it faced.   A draugr was cunning, and it would learn, and remember.

No, the way to kill it was for warriors of great valor, who were proof against its aura, to engage and destroy it, leaving nothing of it behind.  It was the only way to be certain.

To Thor there was nothing to argue about, but the Midgardians seemed to see it differently.  Of course.  He brushed his thumb back and forth across the back of Loki’s hand, trying to soothe him. 

“How did it get here in the first place?” Fury asked, canny enough to change the subject before Loki flat-out murdered a particularly stubborn Air Force officer.  “You said it had to be disturbed from its grave, right?  Is this just some cowboy who got woken up from his dirt nap or something worse?”

“Something worse, no doubt,” Loki answered, not hiding his vindictive amusement in bearing them ever-worsening news.  “A mortal of no name or talents would simply rot away into the earth.  Magic or power would be needed to feed this thing in its tomb until it could rise, either its own magic or a curse meant to keep it there.  Unless Midgard has a greater history of magic than I know, it comes most likely from some other realm, whose people did not want it to lie in their own soil.”

“So they buried it _here_?”

“Time runs differently among the realms, sometimes faster and sometimes slower, and Midgard has been barren of all but beasts for many great stretches of time.  It has been an easy place for the other realms to hide their crimes over the eons, or simply to bury their trash.”

“So somebody killed this guy, buried him out in the middle of prehistoric Texas, and just left him here?”  That was Tony.  “Aren’t they supposed to do something to keep him down?  Put a stake in him?  Magic up his tomb?”

 “They would no doubt have done so, but who knows how many ages might have passed since then?  How many times has the earth shifted around it? In time, even potent magic can fail.”

“Out-fucking-standing,” Fury began.  However, a call came in for him then, breaking his rhythm, and he took it privately.

In the interim, Loki managed to retrieve his hand and then press the back of it to Thor’s forehead, checking his temperature with a superhuman display of disinterest.  Apparently he was satisfied, but he wasn’t quick enough to regain custody of his hand, which Thor snagged out of the air again.  Neither of them looked at each other throughout the whole process.  Tony wished for a camera, because if there was a world-record for feigned indifference, that would have broken it.

“Agent Romanov has informed me that the last of the ground forces are withdrawing,” Fury said, coming back to them.

“I told you to let none go without my company,” Thor rumbled.  “They are dying, are they not?”

“We have two more dead and four incapacitated, including Agent Barton,” Fury said crisply.  “And now you need to tell us how it is that you and your brother showed up just at the same time as this thing that only the two of you seem to understand.”

It was an order, given to those who could not, in fact, be ordered around, but he delivered it as if he had every expectation that it would be followed.

Loki laughed, perhaps appreciating the bravado.

“You know as well as I that my brother and I have been here on your lovely planet for a fortnight.  And I came to this continent only for Thor’s sake.  It is your great fortune that I am here to tell you what you face, and yet you accuse me?”

He didn’t seem particularly offended, to Thor’s ears, but the others were wary of him, of course, and not reassured.  Fury folded his arms.

“You have a history of showing up out of nowhere to kill people.  A lot of people.  In addition, last time we saw you, you were trying your hardest to kill the man you just worked your ass off to save.  You have a change of heart, or is this just our lucky day?”

Thor answered for them both, not really willing to hear what Loki would say.  He thought the news might have reached them with the wergild, but apparently it had not.   He hadn’t seen a reason to bring it up before now.

“Loki is now my Consort,” Thor said.  “He has bound himself to me, as I to him, by blood and oath. When I was struck down, he knew, and came to me.”

His tone invited no commentary on his marital status, choice of consorts, or sanity.  He was, despite his generally easy-going nature, Crown Prince of Asgard, and it was clear he wasn’t particularly interested in their opinions at the moment.

No one actually made a group decision to stay quiet; it just didn’t seem like a particularly good idea. Even though Thor was just sitting there, he had made his position clear.  He was not going to be defending himself or his marriage, because they were going to say nothing about it, and that was all.

Loki enjoyed their reactions, tracking the shift from appalled to alarmed to cautious.  He did not let go of Thor’s hand.

“So which one of you wore the dress?” Tony asked, because he was biologically incapable of letting a statement like that pass without comment.  He made a sort of apologetic grimace to everyone else as soon as he said it, in case the entire room was about to be obliterated by lightning.

“Can you tell us exactly what you saw out there?” Steve asked, speaking up loudly to bring the focus back to the mission.  There really wasn’t time for this nonsense.

“It is an old one,” Thor said, fixing his blue eyes on his friend.  “It has been under the earth so long that it has forgotten the shape of a man, and it grows new limbs as it needs them, and flows like oil over the ground. Everything mortal it touches dies, giving up life to it.  It is strong, and it stinks of rage, but there is cunning there too.  It tried to take Mjölnir from me, and if she had not returned to my hand, I do not know how our battle might have ended, for we were well-matched.  When the mortal warriors came with their guns, it was distracted from me, and hunger took it towards them.  I saved as many as I could.”

“Of course,” Steve said sympathetically.  “Where did it go after that?  Were you able to track it?”

“It shelters away from the light for now, until it need no longer fear it.  It left no trail that I could follow.”

Agent Coulson spoke up.  “Did you know it had injured you?”  Thor raised an eyebrow, and Coulson smiled.  A little.  “I mean, did you know it had broken off a claw in your back?  You didn’t complain of injury when you came back.”

“No.  I cannot remember being struck there, nor did I know the wound had festered.  I came upon the beast and we fought near some houses, none of which survived us, and those scrapes and cuts hurt like they should.”

“It meant you to live, and to carry its presence beyond the field of battle,” Loki said.  “If you had died and come under its control, it would have destroyed this place and all who stand against it, by your hand.  Obviously, it did not understand who it faced.”

Thor did not raise their linked hands and kiss the back of Loki’s, but he wanted to, and Loki understood as much. 

“How much damage were you able to do to it?” Steve asked.

“No great amount, I fear,” Thor said.  “I tore limbs from it and broke it open under my fists, but it did not greatly falter.  I sent Mjölnirthrough it, and its body seemed to open to let her through, and closed again in her wake.  For its part, it was strong and fierce enough to throw me through walls, but I sensed that what it most desired was to take hold of me so that it could rend and tear at me.  As Loki said, I doubt that any of your weapons could do more than anger it even further, or confuse its trail.”

“So what do we throw at it?” Fury said. “Banner can’t get any closer because there’s so much rage coming off of your buddy out there.  We can’t keep feeding it ground troops.  You say aerial bombing won’t dig deep enough, and apparently nuking Texas is no longer considered an option.  So that leaves us, what, you, Cap, and Stark?   Are you going to be able to take this thing?”

“No, they are not,” Loki said. “Each is vulnerable to it, and none can kill it alone.  The Captain will lose strength as his blood works to keep him from dying in the darkness.  Tony Stark’s armor will not keep him safe once it is sundered.  Thor is still weakened from a hurt he did not even know had been dealt him.”

“Is there any reason we can’t just contain it indefinitely?  Put a big-ass wall ten miles out and all the way around and plaster it with ‘Keep Out’ signs?” Tony asked.

“Perhaps, with much diligence, such a thing could have been done,” Loki answered, “and perhaps it might even have kept the draugr imprisoned for a time as it starved.   However, unless I am much mistaken about the advancement of this realm, it is now far too late for that.”

“Why?”

“Because you are running out of time faster than you know.  In a few hours the sun will set, and the draugr will venture out into unbroken darkness for the first time in countless centuries.  How will you catch it then?”

“Local sunset is in about 3 hours and 12 minutes,” Coulson said. 

“Shit,” Fury pronounced, with more solemn gravity than the word was usually granted.

Loki smiled.

*******

“I have an idea,” Thor began.

By the time he was finished, Loki was no longer amused, even by his standards.

******* 

Like most warriors of Asgard, Thor had spent many hours in his armor, perhaps more than in any other clothes.  Buckling it on and adjusting the straps and padding just so was something he could almost do in his sleep.  It was a skillset that stood him in good stead now as he walked towards through the tents and pre-fab buildings towards the makeshift airfield.  He would have been better prepared, and fully dressed, before appearing in front of SHIELD’s warriors, had his darling husband not been completely and utterly opposed to every step he took.

“This is folly, Thor, and you know it.  If it catches you again, I know not if I will have the strength to heal you or even bring you home in good time,” Loki snapped, annoyed to be forced to keep up at Thor’s side, and even more annoyed that nothing he said was making a dent.

“If it is close enough to catch me, it is close enough to be caught, and I will leave nothing of it behind to poison me this time,” Thor said flatly, struggling briefly with a twisted vambrace. 

“What need is there to fight it at all?  Let the mortals struggle with it, and learn what horrors the other realms contain.  They must know someday.”

“They must face it today, and they have not the strength.  Would you truly have me abandon my friends in their moment of need?  Who do you mistake me for?”

“A prince with more responsibilities than you ever had in your youth, when you could throw all cares aside and charge forward to save the innocent maidens from their fate.  That is who you are,” Loki said, grabbing his arm and stepping in front of him.  “This is an ancient one, Thor, and it has been rotting here under earth and stone for longer than these mortals have known how to stand upright. You wish to wield the divine rage against it, but it knows everything of rage, and of hunger.  We do not have its measure, and it is foolish to gain that only in battle.”

“Are you afraid that I will leave you unprotected? Is that—“It was a foolish question, but then Thor was sometimes a fool, when it came to reading Loki.

Loki struck him hard across the face.  Thor caught his wrist an instant too late, and they froze like that, chest to chest, eyes locked, as if nothing else existed.

“I am not _afraid_ , Thor,” Loki hissed.  “Just because you refuse to see the stupidity of risking your life for these –“

Thor kissed him into silence.

It wasn’t a deep or romantic kiss, and fireworks failed to go off overhead, just as a heavenly chorus failed to sing in the background.

It was still their first kiss since their wedding.

Thor pulled back, expecting his brother to retaliate painfully in some way, but Loki only stood there, staring at him, his lips still parted.  It was a strange thing for Loki to be speechless, and Thor knew better than to interrupt him, so he took the opportunity for a second kiss, this one simpler and chaste.  When he eased back to look at his brother this time, all he could see were wide green eyes and what lay behind them.

And then he understood.  Loki _was_ afraid, but not for himself, of their bond dissolving and Asgard’s shield failing with it.  Thor’s injury had shaken him, and he was afraid for _him_.

His voice pitched low, Thor spoke for his ears alone.  “With you at my side, I cannot fail.  As my brother, shieldbrother, and husband, it is your right to stand guardian when the berserkergang comes, and to ward me when it leaves me again.  Will you stand thus for me?”

Loki looked down, to the side, away – anywhere but at Thor.  Damn him a thousand times.

“You have grown wicked and cunning, after all these years at my side,” the dark prince said at last, glancing up to smile a little crookedly.  “Kissing me and then pleading your case.  Really, brother?”

“If nothing else, you have taught me the value of refusing to give up,” Thor said, reaching to brush a stray lock of hair behind Loki’s ear.

Loki sighed, realizing that he’d both lost and won this battle, and he reached out, grasping Thor’s forearm as his was clasped in turn.  “I will stand with you in this foolishness,” he said with a grimace, “but only because I wish to see the draugr close-up.”

It was a lame excuse, perhaps the lamest ever, and it did nothing at all to salvage his pride.

Thor pulled him close and held him anyway, and even if it was brief, it was also their first true embrace in many years, since before they had learned they could ever live apart.

*******

The transition point between the darkness and the late afternoon sunlight was deeply disturbing, in an artistic sort of way.  Both Tony and Loki examined the division closely; even though Tony had been through it before, it had been at fairly high speed.  Being able to stick his arm into midnight and have the repulsor shine at him from the other side was just cool, no matter how it came about.  The division was really razor-sharp, too, which made it even more improbable. 

He wasn’t really surprised to see Loki doing essentially the same thing a few feet away.  He hadn’t exactly ever had much face time with the prince, aside from the brief chat that had ended with Tony being thrown out a window.  Surprisingly, he didn’t hold much of a grudge for that, really; there weren’t a lot of ways that meeting could have ended, and his brief freefall had turned out pretty well, all things considered.  It had been a good test of the suit, actually.

During all that, though, and from the surveillance footage he’d watched of Loki in the cage, talking to Widow and others, he’d gotten the impression that Loki was not too unlike himself, actually.  Loki had a big brain which was working all the time, processing the data, working it into a thousand contingencies, making plans.  He wouldn’t be at all surprised to find out that Loki didn’t sleep much.  He was the genius prince, the one who never met his father’s expectations, and he’d grown up in a culture where having a mean streak wasn’t exactly frowned upon, as long as you could back it up with power.   Selling arms hadn’t exactly been frowned upon either, since Tony had been able to back that up with money, which was power here locally.

The man – god, alien, whatever -- also had a strong sense of fashion, come to think of it.  It’s not like Tony would ever wear the leather armor ensemble Loki was suddenly wearing, but it definitely looked right on him.  Rich black and green and gold – it was all very dramatic, and Loki was all about the drama.  He wasn’t wearing his helmet this time, though, just a gold circlet that crossed his forehead and disappeared beneath his hair, which was gathered partly back from his face in braids.  Part of him wondered if that was some sign of his new rank, even though Thor didn’t wear anything like that, and what that new title actually meant Loki did all day, and whether Thor had been lusting after him the whole time, what with calling him ‘brother’ every other word, while the rest of Tony was wondering why he was wasting computing cycles on the guy when there were obviously better things to be doing right now--

Loki caught him staring, and just smirked.

Steve abruptly arrived to retrieve Tony and send him off to do one of those better things, which turned out to be helping to set up the enormous lights that were being set up around the perimeter.  They’d been rounded up from everywhere, and varied widely in design.  There weren’t enough of any one kind, so they had to be arranged precisely to get the most of them without blowing out the generators that were still being airlifted in, and Tony could probably do that in his sleep.  He should be doing that right now, in fact, instead of staring at people.

Loki gave Steve an evaluating look and then smirked at him as well, which was not something Steve was really prepared to deal with at the current time, so Captain America stomped off to make sure that better things were really getting done.

Loki’s smile faded when he saw Thor coming towards him, trailing a string of mortals who seemed to think he was paying attention to them.  If they had managed to catch up to him, they would have seen that he was only peripherally aware they existed at all.  Thor only had eyes for Loki, and a pleasant shiver ran up the dark prince’s spine in response.

The coming of the berserkergang could be a slow thing, like the parting of a rope thread by thread.  For Thor and the other warriors susceptible to it, the berserker was always there, always under their skin, singing softly in their blood.  The self-discipline needed to keep it under control was either something a warrior learned early or failed to; the penalty was death under the weapons of their enemies, as they raged without wit or sanity.   The berserker was a weapon, and had to be treated with the same veneration and care as the steel he held in his hands.

In a normal battle, the berserker would come out in the heat of it, after the skin had been painted with wounds and everything but the violence of the moment had left his mind.  Even with the proper rites, though, it took some time to build up the bloodlust needed to give up control and bring down the divine rage.  With this foe, however, they had no such luxury as time.

Thor planned to meet it when he was already in the berserker’s grip, to give the draugr no quarter and, hopefully, no chance to wound him as before, or to flee.  Before they even entered the darkness, Thor had to already be on the edge.  Loki must needs keep him there until the time came; any earlier and he might become distracted in his rage, or attack the wrong target.  When the draugr was dead, Loki would have to protect Thor when the berserkergang abandoned him and left him weak and perhaps confused in its wake.

It seemed that Thor had already been working at picking his control apart till only a few threads remained.  It was only a matter of reaching out to the feral side of himself, never too far under the surface.  He grinned at Loki, his smile bright and sharp, and when one of technicians following him made the mistake of getting in front of him, he walked through him like he wasn’t there, shoving him aside without even noticing.  The Crown Prince of Asgard had a purpose, and the concerns of mere mortals were beneath him.

Loki threw his head back and laughed.

Thor grabbed him by the back of the neck and kissed him soundly, carnally, and then let go before Loki could so much as splutter.  “Let us go, husband,” Thor said, his voice rough and low.  “There is much to be done.  It is time to begin--”

“Sir, you _need_ to wait for us to finish setting the lights up,” someone in a uniform interrupted.  He spoke urgently, but with the clipped, confident tones of authority, and despite that politely deferential ‘sir’, he obviously expected compliance.   He compounded this grave error by putting himself right in front of Thor, crowding him.  Loki responded to this gross lack of respect by casually grabbing the man by the front of his clothes and then flinging him several feet away, where it sounded like a crowd of his unsuspecting fellow mortals helpfully broke his fall.  He was a prince, heir to two thrones, and not obliged to suffer the idiocy of mortal men.

If Loki needed any more proof of how close Thor was to the edge, the fifth Avenger didn’t even bother to glance after his husband’s victim.  Utterly undisturbed by the sudden violence, he merely took hold of Loki’s shoulder and turned him towards the darkness.  “It is far too noisy here.  Let us go.”

It only took a couple of steps to cross the line into midnight.

“Somebody mark that down as the moment all this turned to shit,” Nick Fury said with a sigh, back at the command center.  “Now get the rest of those lights up.”

 

~tbc~


	5. Tumbling down

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay. I haven't lost interest or anything like that -- I just don't have as much time as I'd like for writing.

They entered not far from the truckstop, the last place they’d seen any activity.  The heels of Loki’s boots made a gentle clocking sound as they walked across the asphalt. 

The area was still bathed in the pink glow of the neon on cross on the hill, and of a blue “ATM” sign that blinked erratically in a window.

The place smelled like warm asphalt, spilled diesel, and death, and it was as warm as a summer night should be.  The lack of anything living made itself felt in the oppressive silence and currents of empty dread in the still air.

Both princes paused, taking in their surroundings. Inhuman senses reached out, parsing the air, reading stories in the darkness, and feeling—

“Not here,” Loki said abruptly.  “It is not far, though.”

Thor was scenting the air, his fingers flexing around Mjolnir’s handle.  In the horrible light, his eyes seemed to have lost all their color.  Loki stepped in front of him to make sure he had his brother’s attention, and sent a calming wave through their bond.  He hadn’t been sure he could do such a thing, but there it was, and it seemed to work.  Thor’s eyes fixed on his.

“Call the storm, Thor,” Loki said. “Let it begin.”

Thor cocked his head to one side and smiled.  It was a sly and burning thing, and Loki was transfixed.  Blue eyes stared into his own, and the fire in them made him shiver, though he hid it well.  A hand reached out and grasped his chin.  “First, husband, there is something you must understand. When this is done, I will have you underneath me, spread out and wide open, slick and wanting.  I will give you everything I have, everything you need. I swear it.”  

Caught off guard and trying not to let it show, Loki affected a slow, contemplative smile.  “And what if I would have you underneath me instead?”

“I will have you any way it pleases you, but I will have you,” Thor said, pressing his lips chastely against his husband’s brow.  “I have wanted you for so long I cannot bear to think on it.”

“You’ll have to prove yourself first, _husband_.” 

“Gladly.”

Thor pulled Loki close and kissed him, carnally and passionately and overwhelmingly, holding him so close that every inch of their bodies were pressed together.  Loki answered him in kind, just to keep up with him, and Thor’s heat seemed to sear him down to the bone.  When at last they parted, Loki was shaking.  Just a tiny bit. 

Thor smirked at him and then turned his eyes upward, lifting his arms.  Normally he would use Mjölnir to help him summon and focus the storm, but he left it at his side this time, channeling all the energy through himself, snapping all but the last few threads of his control.

Thunder growled overhead, like an enormous beast, and Loki felt an echo of the power lash through him.  He looked up, surprised to find that the storm had built so quickly.  Thor smiled as cold wind swept the stench and heat from the air around them.  He pointed to one of the corpses nearby and lightning struck it instantly, making it fly apart.  Loki almost jumped from the noise and charge of it, so very close, but he covered it by crossing his arms and frowning.

“Show-off,” he grumbled insincerely, and Thor winked at him. “Keep it up and I’ll leave you here to wrestle in the mud with that thing alone.”

“I don’t think so,” Thor said, pulling him close for another quick, violent meeting of their mouths.  “Now take hold, for it comes.”

Loki didn’t bother looking over his shoulder.  He grasped Thor’s hand, the one he had held during their ceremony, and a ribbon, a serpent of green and gold, twisted up and around his wrist, twining around Thor’s before sinking in to their flesh.  Thor watched him intently, running his tongue over dry lips.  He felt the touch of Loki’s magic lacing its way up his spine, the sensation both ice and fire.  It slid up the back of his neck, making him shiver, and as the last few thread of his control began to part, Loki’s power wrapped around them, winding tight.

He had given himself over to Loki entirely, put the power of his berserker self inside his husband’s grasp. It was a weapon of unimaginable power, and it left him vulnerable to Loki’s whims. 

Loki knew it, and his smile turned predatory.  The power was breathtaking.  Thor’s eyes began to glow with it, turning an unnatural blue.

Behind him, darkness gathered and surged.  Lighting spiked down again, revealing nothing.

“Let us seek out our prey,” Loki said softly. 

*******

It had been in the earth so long that it had forgotten itself, wherever it might have come from and what it might have been.  It had no memories, only an understanding that once it had lived in the light and been free, and then it was forced into darkness and held there by the wards driven like hooks into its flesh.  Whoever had done this, it did not know anymore. It seethed now simply with the knowledge that it had been _wronged_.  Now the crumbling wards had been broken, and it had not had the desire to question why before it had torn the life from the frail mortal creatures and used that to surge out and upwards, through the chamber and the tunnels, past the tools and flickering computer screens, into fresh air and light so bright that blood and fire had run from its eyes before it could call darkness.

It had threaded knowledge out of the dying, enough to know that the mortals had not known it was there when they’d come digging in the dirt, excited at the strangeness of its tomb.

It raised the dark all around it, drawing strength.

It took it all.  Plants, animals, insects, the birds in the air, and mortals, the scattering of bright sweet tones it could feel through the earth that spoke of life ready to be taken.

It hated nothing, and no one. 

All that was left of it was rage and desire.

All it wanted was to make everything die.

It might have been satisfied with what it had for now, but the Bright One had come down, and so many flooded in after.  The Bright One… oh, how it desired it, how it lusted after it, for such a thing could not be permitted to exist in the world.  Could _not_.

But the Bright One, oh, it didn’t understand that it had to give up its life, and it fought, until the draugr could only content itself with infection instead of possession.  When the Bright One fled, the others came with their lives to offer, and it had taken them, and waited for the Bright One to return with another offering of lives.

When the Bright One didn’t come, it didn’t mind so very much.  There was a new taste in the air, of darkness gathering on the rim of the world, and it would only have to wait a little, just a little more.  In the meantime, it moved among the dead ones, the husks that sometimes roused up behind it, and took the rest of them one by one, savoring the last tiny sparks within them.

Then there was a surge of light, and the Bright One was back, and it felt a burning rush of something that might have been an emotion once.  It would take this one now, and rend it until there was nothing left.

It barely registered that the Bright One was so much brighter now, or that a darkness entirely unlike its own was wound tightly around it.

*******

“Is the next camera up yet?”

“One second, sir…”

At this point, to be honest, Nick Fury would have been glad to have something petty to get pissed off about, like the delay in feeding remote camera rigs into this thing as each one died and had to be replaced. 

It was both fortunate and unfortunate, then, that his team and the teams they were coordinating were being almost supernaturally efficient, and not only were the lights up all around the perimeter, but the cameras were being cycled in regularly.  There hadn’t been any serious squabbles between the various organizations involved, no turf battles, and no dick-waving.  Granted, this whole draugr thing was enough to make an average man piss himself, but a crisis didn’t guarantee people would pull their head out.  On the whole, things were going as well as could be expected.

That was a pity, because he could’ve used the stress relief of making some idiot cry.  It also unnerved him, because he was waiting for the next disaster to hit. 

“Got it, sir.  Coming up on the main screen,” the technician said.

A hush fell over the room as the image resolved.

“Jesus fucking Christ, how did it get that _big_?”

It was huge now, maybe the size of a truck, but it was hard to gage precisely because it had changed form again.  The thing that crawled across the tarmac now looked like a giant, for it was sized that way, but it was only a torso walking on its hands, trailing long loops of writhing intestines behind it.  The hairless head contained a jaw too big for it, lined with perfect teeth, and deep pits that might have held its eyes.  As it moved, the blacktop cracked under its many-fingered hands.

It was easy to make out in the bright flashes of lightning that struck around it in a perfect circle.

There was no audio, but imaginations filled in the sound as it roared defiance.

Thor and his brother must be there, but the slowly panning camera hadn’t found them yet when it began to shake on its mounting.  A moment later the screen whited out and went black.

“Damnit, we’re losing them faster and faster,” Fury said.

“I think that was lightning, sir,” Coulson said.

********

“Thor,” Loki said, and eyes luminous even in this darkness turned to him easily, shifting away from the beast that had come to face them.  Thor had greeted it with lightning and defiance.

Traditionally, the berserkers prepared before a battle with rituals and sacrifice.  It was hardly necessary now, but as a seidr worker, Loki appreciated the value of ritual, however little time they had for it.  The beast roared, a high-pitched shriek that tore at the air, and they could feel its toxic, entropic presence biting at them already, like a sharp, cutting sandstorm seeking to tear them down into nothingness.

“Thor,” he said, his voice resonant, cutting across the din of both the beast and the answering thunder.  The words came easily to his tongue.  “Sky-breaker. Wind-raiser. Lord of Storms. Your foe stands before you.  Go, Thunderer, and nourish the earth with its blood.”

Simple words, not at all like the golden drops of deceit he was famed for.

No more was necessary.  Simply an invocation and a letting-go, as Loki’s magic unwound, snapping the last few threads of Thor’s reason.

The sky caught fire.

*******

Outside, the wind was picking up as the hyper-localized storm grew, drawing strength from the temperature differences around the edge of the darkness, in response to Thor’s summoning.

One of the massive trailer-mounted lights caught a gust and began to tip over, the hydraulic lifts groaning as it went.  Iron Man was there to catch it, and Captain America was there to make sure the rigging was done properly this time. Dust and rain splattered them both.

“Any word?” Steve asked over the team channel, and Tony knew what he wanted.  Cap got the ops feed on his headset, but Tony had JARVIS monitoring all of SHIELD’s channels for various keywords and keeping him updated at the things that SHIELD might not want to pass along.  Since the New York thing, the Avengers trusted SHIELD only slightly farther than they could have thrown them.  Even with the Hulk involved, that really didn’t make them buddies.  Monitoring SHIELD during any operation had become standard procedure.

This time, Tony had news.  “Looks like Barton’s gonna lose a kidney and a couple of teeth, but he’ll be up and running again in a couple of months.  Widow got away with a broken wrist.  Thor and Mr. Personality in there are face to face with the big Z, and  -- _Jesus!”_

Steve looked up just in time to see lightning strike Tony a second and a third time, but he didn’t quite make it there to catch him before Iron Man fell out of the sky and plowed into the dirt.

*******

It didn’t rain. 

The storm howled around them, but there was no rain.  Loki noted it in passing as he vanished, removing himself from the space between the draugr and the god of thunder.   There was no point at all in being caught between the two of them right now, and it was not, in fact, his role in this battle.  He was there to watch over Thor while the berserkergang had him, not take on the brunt of the battle himself.  He would protect him from the small things Thor might not see in his fury, like the claw slipped behind his neck, or the stinger curling towards his legs, the poisoned blood flung at his face.  Loki meant to protect Thor and do what damage he could, while Thor meant to kill his foe.

There was always a chance that Thor might turn on Loki in the midst of his rage, mistaking him for another enemy.  Although both of them knew this, neither would admit it.  Pride did not permit it.

Thor did not name himself or threaten his foe this time: he was not the shining son of Asgard advancing into glorious battle right now.  Instead, he threw Mjölnir and then followed her, blurring out of sight as he closed with his enemy, prepared to rend and maul.  The draugr reared up and to the side, trying to avoid the hammer blow, but Loki struck it from behind just then, driving a spear through its back and into the ground beneath, pinning it in place just as Thor hit it from the front.  The grotesque form twisted, its flesh rippling, and almost evaded them both, but though it dodged his weapon, it could not escape Thor himself.  The Thunderer drove his fists into its body, breaking bone, and the creature vomited black ichor across his armor.

Mjölnir arced back around into Thor’s fist, and he struck the draugr with it, laughing at the deep craters it left in the grey-brown flesh.

Behind it, Loki paused for the briefest of moments, hearing his brother’s unguarded joy, and was nearly caught as a heavy loop of intestine lashed through the air at him, spraying him with filth as he leaped over it.  With a snarl, he conjured a second spear and pinned the repulsive tentacle down into the asphalt too.

The draugr cried out, the sound huge and hollow and terrifying, too low and too high at the same time, and Loki winced, covering his ears as the remaining glass around them shattered.   The pink neon cross shuddered and quietly exploded, casting the area into darkness. 

For a brief handful of seconds, that darkness was all there was, until lightning struck in more than a dozen places all at once, gouging smoldering wounds across the draugr’s hide.  The weeds and trash gathered at the edges of the parking lot caught another bolt, and fire began to spread through the brush on the hillside.

Thor’s eyes, the roundels on the front of his armor, and, not least, Mjölnir itself were giving off their own light, a pure, blue-tinged white glow.  Loki belatedly conjured a witch-light, sending the bright sphere overhead to give the warriors steadier illumination, but it failed quickly in the creature’s aura.

It lasted long enough, however, for Loki to see that the draugr’s last cry had been a summons.  He wondered how many mortals had been living in this patch of scrubby earth before the draugr came, because even though it had been eating its own creations, there were still well over a dozen to come shuffling in out of the darkness now.

Loki had seen too much in all his long years to be truly horrified by them, but they were undeniably grotesque.  Some were missing limbs or chunks of torso, and at least one was trailing its internal organs from a hole that took up most of its back.  The draugr played rough with its toys.

Loki kept himself behind the beast, skewering the guts that tried to twist and slither their way to Thor.  He saw now that the smaller dead ones were converging on the thunder god himself, trying to mob him and weigh him down.  He grinned, reading it as a sign of weakness, and knives, thick and long and razor-sharp, bloomed from his hands as he went to meet them. 

Thor saw him move to greet his foes.  Thor saw everything that passed in his kingdom, this field of battle.  The rage that sang through his body now did not make him a beast. Instead, it narrowed his focus, took away everything but the need to fight, to protect what was his.  He didn’t remember now why the draugr had to die, or even what it really was.  He did not know Loki’s name, or remember anything of their lives together:  Loki was not husband, brother, ally, or enemy.  He was simply _Thor’s_ , and he felt him through a bond like bands of ice around his chest, burning with him. Thor did not mind him fighting, for this possession of his was swift and violent and deadly, and Thor would deny no one the ecstasy of battle.

Roaring, he dug his hands into the draugr’s jaw, meaning to tear it off, because pain was a gift he would give freely.  He would destroy this thing.  He would rend it until it stopped.  Stopped moving, stopped living.  He had no thoughts of any future past that.

When the heavy head dipped down and the jaw snapped shut, he freed a hand and smashed Mjölnir into its face, smashing bone and tearing flesh, shattering teeth and skull.  A spray of crystalline teeth shot out, glittering like shards of broken glass.

Thor leaped up lightly and planted his feet in the bony chest, using the strength of his body to wrench at the jaw again: he meant to have it off.

Behind him, he heard with a strange clarity the sound of his Loki laughing as he struck another of the lesser dead ones down, and he could not keep from laughing himself.

Then he realized that his boots were beginning to sink into the draugr’s chest, and the black beast reared over his head, shifting as it moved, until a terrible black weight came down on him, driving all the breath from his body.

*******

Tony’s suit didn’t want to open, not for the emergency latch that Steve had made him install, and not for Steve’s own hands, which couldn’t get purchase under the face mask at first.  Iron Man wasn’t moving at all, and the arc light was dark and flickering; Tony responded to nothing while Steve struggled to get his suit open.

He knew Tony had been strengthening the suit and its seals over the last few months, but he didn’t realize he’d been this successful.  A video had surfaced of Thor easily ripping the face mask off his suit after the New York battle, and even though that had helped saved Tony’s life, it had also irked him to see how fragile it made the suit look.  Of course, Thor was insanely strong, but Tony’s vanity had been damaged, and so there was nothing for it but to put hours of work in on making it this much harder to get his goddamned suit open if he was unconscious.

Eventually, as the medics grew more concerned and Steve grew a little frantic, he felt two of his fingernails peel back as he got his fingers under the edge and finally pried the face plate off entirely.  He reached in and felt around for the release inside the neck joint, glad that he’d made Tony go over the whole suit with him a while ago.  The armor plates started to fold back, opening for him, and the docs moved in, pushing him back as they did their jobs.

Much of modern technology seemed pointless, invasive, or bizarre to Steve, but he had a deep appreciate for two things at a minimum.  One of them was transportation, which was fast enough and reliable enough to make this whole Avengers thing possible.  The other was medical technology, which was nowadays just this side of magic, and which almost made up for the grudge he still held against the medical profession as a whole.  The way they descended on Tony, various monitors in hand, was a little unsettling, but even more reassuring.

Right up until the arc reactor’s light went out completely and Tony stopped breathing.

It took everything he had not to push forward and try to do something, even if he didn’t know what that was.

He hovered as they worked on him, watching Tony, trying to stay out of the way, and looking for some way to help.  It was almost a pleasure when they asked him to carry Tony onto the helo for them.  He hadn’t even been aware that it had landed, though it wasn’t far away.  He loaded Tony onto the stretcher and watched as he was strapped down, the docs still working on him the whole time.  He climbed in because he could, because none of them were going to tell Captain America he couldn’t go.

He felt a touch on his arm and turned to see Agent Coulson sitting behind him.   The man still made him a little uncomfortable, both with his fanboy history and by his relentless competence at his job.  Steve was a competent man himself, in everything, but Coulson put him to shame.

Right at the moment, he was holding out something in his hand, something that glowed blue, that Steve recognized but had completely forgotten about.

“How about we give this a try?” Coulson said, his voice mild, but his eyes full of curiosity.

It was one of the Asgardian healing stones that Midgard had received as part of Loki’s weregild.

Steve had no idea what to do with it.  He simply grabbed it, held it to his lips for a moment, and said “Jesus Christ, Tony, don’t die on me _now_.”

Then he pressed it down on top of the arc reactor, and hoped that it would work.

*******

The helo was in the air before the shockwave could hit it, but the ground crews weren’t so lucky.  The earth growled and shifted sharply beneath their feet, knocking people down and tipping the massive lights over.  At the command center, the whole building shook, and when it was over, after only a few seconds, the electricity failed, leaving them in darkness.  The sun hadn’t set outside, but inside the makeshift building, the only lights came from laptops and other devices on batteries, before someone got a backup generator going.

When the comms came back up, the first message they received was that Iron Man was down, and possibly KIA.

_tbc_


	6. Coming Undone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An Epic Battle! Thor hurting things, a lot! Loki, annoyed! Tony, on the edge of death! Steve being Steve! Romantic angst! Mud! The tragedy of SHIELD's totally inadequate surveillance!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry I'm so bad at updating this -- it's neither forgotten nor abandoned.

 

Loki felt Thor go down behind him as a sort of swooping, hollowing sickness in his chest, and he spun around just in time to see Thor’s light go dark under the howling mass of the draugr.  The monster had trapped him and rolled forward on him, crushing him beneath its mass.   As Loki watched, the thing’s back ripped open and the spine twisted upwards, flesh following it to form a new neck and head.  This head was more vulpine than human, and the jaw dropped to reveal great fangs as it howled.  The tentacles and loops of its exposed guts twined and melded, becoming hind legs, and the front of it re-formed into the front legs of a wolf, or a dog.  It was a crudely molded image, and the raw skin over it bunched and moved as if the structures beneath had yet to settle.  The draugr kept its chest and belly flush with the ground, crouching there as it tried to crush the life out of the God of Thunder.

Out of Loki’s _hus—brother._

This was his fault.  He shouldn’t have let Thor’s rage thread through their bond and send him after the walking dead.  He had laughed and slaughtered his way through them one at a time, because they were grotesque and horrible, and it gave him pleasure to cut them down.

He should have been watching Thor’s back, and he hadn’t been.

Without looking at the shambling corpses around him, he extended one hand, splayed the fingers out, and then quickly squeezed them into a fist.  The dead, frozen solid with the flick of his fingers, shattered, becoming as irrevocably dead as anything could ever be.

Loki had other concerns.

He felt like he was drowning, and knew it was only an echo down the path of his bond with Thor. 

With a complex gesture, he summoned a spear, making ice of Thor’s storm, and with a few steps and a leap, he drove it deep into the draugr’s side. Green fire spiraled up the shaft, carrying Loki’s malice with it, searing the damned thing from the inside.  There was a shriek that would have shattered a mortal’s ears, and then the draugr was in motion, reaching out for him with an arm suddenly longer than it should be, and it took both luck and agility to keep free from its grasp.  It was fast, much faster than Loki expected, and he conjured a dozen illusions of himself to give himself space to think.  They were hardly able to hurt it, but it struck at them, destroying them each in turn.

He could feel the pulse of Thor’s rage heighten as he struggled, and Loki channeled that now, feeding off it as he prepared an attack.  The damned thing was miserably quick, and he only had a few moments before claws as long as his arm were coming for him.  He let the spell fly, and the draugr burst into flames.  That wasn’t what he’d meant it to do, but the screams that followed told him he’d struck true anyway. 

But it wasn’t moving off Thor.

He pointed down at the ground with all ten fingers spread wide, and then ripped them upwards, hoping that Thor was too tough to be hurt by such a clumsy spell.  The earth heaved up underneath the draugr, battering it with heavy blows and rolling it over to one side.  Massive limbs scrabbled for purchase on muddy ground as bones snapped, but Loki continued to heave the earth up against it, and it collapsed heavily over on one side. 

In the muck beneath, there was a faint gleam of light, and then Thor erupted upwards from the earth, streaked with gore and utterly lost to reason, his eyes glowing and blank.  Lightning struck him, once or a dozen times, and he held out a hand.  For the briefest of moments, Loki thought that hand was for him, but it was Mjölnir that answered the call, breaking ribs and tearing flesh as it tore through dark flesh and earth to reach him.

A hand with claws as long as his legs came up, slamming together around him like a cage, and then the fist slammed him into the dirt hard enough to leave a crater.   Thor was back up in a second, and he struck the extended arm with his hammer, crushing it.  When the draugr tried to pull it back, the pulverized flesh parted, and the beast only pulled back a ragged stump.  It screamed as lightning struck it in the open wound, and instead of cauterizing it, blew the flesh apart further.

Loki froze the severed limb to keep it still; the old one was too tough to kill as quickly as its cursed offspring.  Life still crawled through it, but this much of the draugr was out of the fight.  He couldn’t control the tiny shiver of disgust at the eagerness with which the frost magic surged through him again, but it was worth it. 

He turned to see Thor watching him, blank and glowing eyes taking in what he’d just done.  Before Loki could so much as flinch, lightning struck the frozen limb, shattering it, making it explode with a terrible shriek of light and power.  Loki could feel the life in it being extinguished like a fresh wind moving the stale, corrosive air around him, and he grinned at Thor, seeing precisely how they might kill this thing.  He had no way of making the berserker prince understand what must happen if he didn’t already get it, and the three steps it would take might be beyond his capacity at the moment, but that question was answered within a few moments as Thor ripped another chunk of the monster’s leg free and threw it towards Loki.  The dark prince froze it and the bright prince made it explode, and the rest of the battle was set, whether the draugr knew it or not.

Apparently it did not, because the fight continued, growing more vicious now as the draugr realized its weakness.  Thor struck it and tore at its flesh, sending Mjölnir through it again and again, making the earth shake and groan just as the sky howled overhead.  Loki was merciless, freezing each part as it was torn loose, and yet still watching Thor’s back, fending off the stingers and blades it grew to send at him.

Guilt gnawed at Loki’s insides, and he despised few things in existence more than guilt; in reaction he fought flawlessly, the two of them in perfect sync even though one of them was technically out of his mind.

The draugr died in fits and starts, and the air around it grew worse, seeking to unmake them, teasing the moisture from their eyes and the oxygen from the air.  The small scrapes and cuts that came with battle in any form stopped healing, and the princes were streaked with gore. 

A dozen legs erupted from the thing’s back, armored and tipped either with razor spikes or grasping claws, and all of these seemed to reach for Thor at once.  Loki was in amongst them immediately, warding them off with a shield and then severing them with blades of ice and fire.  It was hard to keep them away from Thor without getting in the Thunderer’s way, and his focus narrowed as he whirled, magic flaring.  Any of these could find their way under Thor’s armor and then they would all be back where they started again, with the draugr’s essence burrowing into Thor’s flesh, seeking to become him.

That would not be permitted to happen again. 

Lighting clustered, striking the draugr again and again, the light and sound deafening to lesser creatures had there been any present.  Desperation crept in and the thing charged them, jaws snapping, and Thor met it head on, driving Mjölnir down into the thick, malformed skull again and again.  A new head formed just in time for branching lightning to strike it blind. 

It was only a matter of time.

It was hideous work, tearing the beast down, but Thor did not care; he would fight until the last life had left it.  Loki was too busy to think on it much, as he defended Thor’s back and froze whatever pieces of it were ripped free.  The draugr shrieked, showing mismatched teeth, and leaped at Thor, jaws wide, but his armor was too much for such clumsy weapons, and he slammed his hammer down on it, shattering the jaw.

Lightning struck it again, and again, and again.  Ice took away the severed parts of it away forever, forbidding reunion.

It was a stubborn thing, and old, but it could not stand against the princes of Asgard and win.

Finally the deed was done, and there was nothing left of it, no scraps of life that could meld into a being of thought and malice.  Winds came, cleansing the pall of death from the air.  The unnatural darkness was dissipating, replaced by the natural darkness of a stormy night. 

Still, it did not rain.

Exhausted after this fight and healing Thor earlier, Loki nearly dropped to his knees with relief.  Pride forbade it, however, and he managed to go to his brother’s side and drop a hand on his shoulder.

“Well fought,” he said lightly, as if he wasn’t holding himself together with sheer willpower.

Thor did not look up at him.  Panting, he seemed to stare at the ground.  Although the roundels of his armor were no longer glowing, electricity still arced and played over his skin.

Fantastic.  Thor was not back to normal yet, but neither had he exhausted himself.  Power was still pulsing through him, but there was no enemy in sight.

Loki reached out tentatively through their bond, seeking to help Thor gather up the strands of his self-control, but he was sharply rebuffed, as if he’d had his hand slapped.  Thor’s head snapped up, and though they weren’t glowing anymore, his eyes were preternaturally blue, even in the near-darkness.

“I can break it.”  Thor’s voice scraped and broke as he pulled in lungfuls of air, still trying to get enough.

“What?”

Thor grasped his forearm, the way they had done before their parents once.  “As I am…  I can see it.  I can break it.”

The bond.  He means he can break the bond, Loki realized.  _Our bond_. 

“Say the word, and I’ll set you free.”

“Thor…” he said, but he’s got nothing to follow it up with.  It appeared to be his lot in life these days, to be struck dumb when it really mattered most.   Perhaps someone’s managed to curse him.  Or maybe it’s just Thor, constantly up-ending and scattering everything in Loki’s life.  It’s been like that since they were children.  Why should things be any different now?

“Decide.  I may not be able to offer this a second time,” Thor rasped, and now Loki could see that his power was weakening, dimming as he spoke.

“No, Thor,” he said, before he even realized he was going to speak.  “No.”

“Last chance,” Thor said, and he grinned at Loki.  There was blood in his teeth, and his beard, and throughout his hair, matting it down.  Even that didn’t make him less beautiful, damn him.

“Stop making me say it,” Loki growled at him.

“If you cut me loose, you won’t have to carry me home,” Thor said, easier now that he knew he’d won, the bastard.

“Don’t tempt me,” Loki said, sneering, but when Thor’s legs abruptly decline to carry his weight even a second longer, Loki caught him.  Or tried to, because he found he couldn’t keep them both up, and the two of them went down in a tangle of limbs.  It was awkward and painful in places, and in no way should it have inspired them to laugh, but they did; they giggled like the boys they once were, ages and ages ago, roughed up, victorious, and together. 

And, of course, that’s when the rain finally came, in thick, fat, warm drops that drenched them within an instant.  Thor was so tired, now that the berserkergang was leaving him,  that he could only manage to throw his cape over them both, as if that would protect them from his rain.  Then he pulled Loki close and let go, all of his excess energy rolling off his skin.  Some of it seeped into Loki’s flesh, perhaps through their bond, and he thought about raising a shield to shelter them, but Thor’s storm was cleansing and somehow pure, washing the blood from them, cleaning their wounds, and making them new again.

Loki lay there, with Thor weak and trusting in his arms, and watched the storm dissipate overhead.  In a few minutes, he would have the strength to call Heimdall, but for now he was happy enough where he was.

In the mud.  With the husband he could have been free of, had he just said ‘yes’ instead of ‘no’.  It didn’t really bear thinking about. 

Thor groaned into his neck, and Loki brushed the hair out of his face.  “Thor,” he said contemplatively, receiving a mild grunt in answer.  “You do know, this was supposed to be a vacation.”

“Are you unsatisfied?” Thor asked, his voice muffled from his face being tucked into Loki’s neck.  “Were you not entertained?”

Loki tried to scowl ferociously, but he just didn’t have it in him at the moment.  “I suppose it had its moments.”

“Then shut up.  I’m trying to sleep,” Thor grumbled.

“I should leave you here to drown,” Loki said, but it was hard to put too much venom into it when he was surprisingly comfortable for some reason, down in the dirt with Thor snuggled up to him.  Heavy, inconsiderate bastard that he was.

“Love you too,” Thor said faintly, but he was out like a light almost the moment he said it, and so Loki was left with him, staring up at the clearing skies, utterly soaked and listening the slight rasp of Thor’s breathing.

It wasn’t the _worst_ family vacation he’d ever been on, he mused.

He had lain there for some endless period of time, constantly thinking that he’d get up and move in just another minute or so, when the mortals beat him to it.   There were lights suddenly, great blinding lights from an air craft of some kind, but they were more respectful of where they shone the bloody things once he made a few of them explode.  He closed his eyes and let the mortals run around and do as they willed after that, trusting that he would know if they did anything particularly stupid.

There were groups of them setting up lights again, ready to make sure the draugar were entirely gone, but a few minutes passed before anyone came over to where the princes of Asgard lay entwined in the mud.  Loki assumed their reluctance came from fear, and he was not unhappy with that at all.  Let them fear, just so long as they respectfully got his husband and himself to someplace more comfortable, preferably somewhere with a shower and a bed big enough for both of them, since he doubted that Thor was going to be letting go of him anytime soon. The arms wound tightly around his torso were fairly good proof of that, and when Thor first heard the voices approaching them, he clung even tighter to Loki, although there was no sign he was awake for it.

Somehow, the mortals proved entirely competent, and they didn’t even try to separate the two of them as the princes were gently, if awkwardly, loaded onto a stretcher and put aboard the aircraft, still muddy and entwined and together.

Thor’s only reaction to all of this was a sigh.

Loki scowled at him, but fell asleep before the craft touched ground again.

It had been a long day.

********

“I don’t think it works that way.”

“Well, no shit,” Captain America said, running a hand through his hair in an effort not to smack Coulson upside the head.  The magic rock was just sitting on Tony’s reactor, doing nothing but glowing a little and wobbling in time with Tony’s gasping breaths.  In a word, it was fucking useless, and why the hell was it taking so long to get this air craft on the goddamned ground?

Coulson didn’t roll his eyes, but it was a near thing.  Instead, he grabbed the stone and then held it back out to Steve again.  “Crush it.  With your fingers.  Let the sand fall on his skin.”

Steve blinked at him, but then he did it, because Coulson was probably the textbook definition of competence, and it seemed perfectly natural that he would show up with the magic rocks and know how to use them, right when he was most needed.  Kind of vaguely annoying, yes, but perfectly natural. 

The rock was hard and solid in his fist, but after a few moments he felt it give, and fine sand trickled through his fingers, scattering over Tony’s chest and vanishing into his skin.  He wasn’t at all clear on how this was supposed to work, but he tried to cover Tony’s upper torso equally with it, saving a little bit for his head, because if this did work, Tony’s brain could probably use the help anyway.

Almost immediately, Tony’s breathing evened out and the color came back into his face.  The reactor still flickered, but it seemed steadier now, and Tony’s pulse strengthened under Steve’s fingers.  After several more moments, his eyes opened, and though they didn’t stay that way for long, it was a hell of a good sign.  A minute or two later, they opened and Tony managed to focus on Steve’s face, regarding him solemnly.

“Auntie Em, is it really you?”

“Shut up, Tony,” Steve said, but he was smiling.

*******

Despite the fact that Thor had summoned the enormous storm through his inhuman talents and some dramatic gesturing with his physics-defying hammer, it was still a natural phenomenon.  Storms, once formed, tended to behave in certain ways, and this one was no different.  Thor rarely spent much time thinking of his storms after he’d created them, and this one was also no different.

This one was in Texas, however. 

The tornado was small but it would have been highly damaging, had there been much left in the area to damage.  As it was, it erased most of the remains of the Flying Q Fuel Ranch, leaving behind only a small cluster of trailer trucks and a somewhat traumatized 1973 Dodge Charger.  It also chased most of SHIELD’s recovery teams away, although they did manage to pick up their Aesir visitors beforehand.

Almost everything that had been left of the draugr was picked up and whisked away, scattered by the punishing winds.  Some of it, of course, had been driven into the earth by the rain, and mixed with soil.  Although several tons of topsoil and all the remaining debris would later be removed, and the draugr’s tomb would later be filled completely filled in with salt and cemented over, that particular slice of the Texas prairie would never quite recover.  The surrounding ranches were eventually abandoned, and the highway was rebuilt to remove the exit.  Bad things just seemed to happen there.

The bodies of 13 archeologists connected to the University of California at San Diego would later be recovered near the tomb.  DNA matching would eventually be needed before definite names could be attached to the bundles of flesh and bone that had once been professors and graduate students nearly incandescent with excitement at having found something so unexpected there in the middle of nowhere.

*********

Loki had no interest whatsoever in staying around to be questioned by a bunch of mortals.  He had told them what the draugr was in order to watch their faces as he delivered the bad news, and that had provided him with several minutes of entertainment.  However, now that it was all done, he wasn’t going to sit there and relive every little bit of the battle with them.   He’d spent far too much of his life in libraries not to understand why they’d want thorough documentation, but that didn’t mean he cared.

Thor, however, was not recovering from the berserkergang as quickly as Loki expected, and there was little to do while he waited for his darling spouse to wake up.  Thor had suffered nothing more than bruises in their fight, but he was taking his sweet time in gathering his wits about him.   Loki sat near his cot while Thor twitched and muttered, and tried to look like his hand wasn’t being crushed in Thor’s sweaty paw.  There had proved to be no way short of violence to regain custody of his hand, and he wasn’t resorting to that in front of the mortals. 

He didn’t much relish the idea of arriving in Asgard with Thor still unconscious.  With that kind of injury, Heimdall would alert their parents, and Frigga would meet them as soon as they arrived.  He could already hear his mother asking why he hadn’t been looking out for his husband, which he had been, thank you so much.  Then she would give him _that_ look, and he’d end up spending some endless amount of time explaining how none of this was actually his fault.  And then she’d sigh in disappointment as she looked at her sons, and they’d both get to live with _that_ for the next fifty years or so.  Experience, if not good sense, had taught the Brothers Odinson not to go home right after one of their escapades unless both of them could walk or at least one of them was dying.   

He was lamentably too tired to find a way to sneak into the Realm Eternal just at the moment.

So he sat there and suffered Thor clutching insensibly at his hand while the Avengers (and really, what kind of name was that?) came and went, checking up on Thor and asking Loki questions he rarely deigned to answer.

The Iron Man, of course, was the most persistent.  Despite looking pale and smelling of expired magic, he was apparently in good spirits, and he came to Loki with all sorts of intelligent queries about the mechanics of elemental magic, like where the energy came from when he froze things, and where it went, and why they couldn’t hear the laws of physics screaming in agony as he broke them all.

Loki, having made some small study of such things, asked him in return why he didn’t have to be poured out of his suit after every flight, but that only encouraged the man, who told him exactly why, in excruciating detail. 

“Remind me to set you on fire next time I see you, Stark,” Loki said, closing his eyes and leaning back in his aggressively uncomfortable chair.   His head throbbed unpleasantly.

Tony took that as a continuation of their conversation.  He was enthusiastic and full of life, and utterly incapable of recognizing Loki’s lack of response.  It was probably not a first for him.

Loki was not expecting to be rescued by Captain America, but he wasn’t in a position to turn away a savior.   Or to acknowledge one.  Without commentary, he watched Steve come in and bundle Tony off with the threat of sending him back to the doctors for another checkup if he didn’t get some rest.  When it was clear that Steve wasn’t leaving afterwards, Loki opened one eye and regarded him dimly before closing it again.  He wasn’t capable of ignoring a potential enemy sitting so close to him, but he tried.

“So, how did you know you were in love with Thor?”  The question came after several minutes of silence, and there was no prelude to it. 

Not entirely certain he hadn’t fallen asleep and embarked on one of his stranger dreams, Loki blinked and sat up a little straighter to look at Steve.  “Are you asking me for advice on affairs of the heart, Captain Rogers?”

Steve felt he showed great control by not actually blushing hard enough to lose consciousness.  It was a small victory, but he was willing to work with what he had.  “Well, they gave me a list of about 30 questions to ask, but I figure there’s no chance in hell you’ll answer any of ‘em.  So I might as well use the time for something else.”

“Why ask _me_ , though?”

“Well, you may not have noticed, but you and Thor have the closest thing to a successful relationship of any of us.”

That statement hung in the air between them in all its horribleness, until Loki managed a dry chuckle.  “How tragic.”

“Yeah, that’s why I’m down to asking you,” Steve said, enunciating clearly because, if he was dead-set on embarrassing himself tonight, he wasn’t going to mumble while doing it.

“Why not ask Thor?  Surely he’s more likely to give you a useful answer.”

“He’s unconscious,” Steve pointed out helpfully.

Loki frowned at him lightly, then closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair again.  He was silent long enough for Steve to wonder if he was going to say anything at all, but he spoke again after several moments.

“The object of your affections, Captain, is a hostage to his own thoughts.  They crowd in at such speed that he can barely keep afloat.  If you wish to court him, you must tell him so, or he will not see it.”

Put like that, Steve could believe it.  Tony’s brain was always busy, always churning out plans and ideas and schemes, and for the most part, that had served him well.  He wasn’t really that good at people, though.  Most of the people Tony came across expected him to act only in certain ways, and it was probably easier for him to just meet their expectations and keep moving than try to figure them out.  If Steve wanted to ‘court’ him, he’d have to tell him up front, to make sure Tony realized what was going on. 

“That’s good advice,” he said, willing to give credit where it was due.  “But you didn’t answer my question.”

Loki laughed.  “There is no answer.  Sentiment is madness. You can either embrace it or not, as you choose.”

Steve tried to drag a little more out of him, but it was clear that Loki had reached the end of his patience.   The captain left to mull over what Loki had said.  Today’s events had changed a lot of things, and finally convinced him that he was going to have to do something about the Tony issue.  After the zombies and the storm, asking for romantic advice from Loki Silvertongue hadn’t seemed particularly crazy.  Maybe it was time for a vacation.  Or at least a decent nap.

No, he decided.  This was the time to face things head on.  With the same sort of grim determination usually found in soldiers about to charge enemy trenches, Steve went to find Tony.  

*********

Loki found that he himself wasn’t averse to a good nap after the mortal left, and when the next would-be interrogator came to the door, they found that an invisible barrier had been placed across it.  It glowed green when someone pushed against it, but otherwise it did nothing but keep visitors out.  It wasn’t there very long, and when it was gone, so were the inhabitants of the room. 

Since SHIELD had been using its surveillance equipment elsewhere, there were no cameras in place to record what happened after Steve left.  There would be no video of Thor suddenly hauling Loki out of his chair and on top of him on the cot, where he let go of Loki’s hand in favor of wrapping his arms around his husband’s waist and neck.  No audio would pick up the deep growl of Thor saying “Madness, is it?” or the way Loki’s breath hitched.  The deeply obscene kiss that followed, and the way that Loki seemed to simply melt into Thor’s embrace, would go undocumented for posterity.

*******

About an hour after Midgard’s royal visitors vanished without explanation or regrets, Dr. Bruce Banner, scientist, Avenger, and possessor of a secret only slightly less badly kept than Iron Man’s identity, arrived at the scene in the back of a Humvee. 

“Hey, guys!” he greeted the command center, with probably a touch more cheer than was strictly necessary.  “So how’d it go?”

With surprising grace, considering that Thor, Loki, Tony Stark, and Captain America had all gone AWOL on him during the last sixty minutes, Fury told him.

~tbc~

 

 


	7. Fools and Princes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quoth the Bard: "The course of true love never did run smooth."
> 
> 100% more smut than previous chapters

It turned out that Frigga met them on the Bridge anyway, accompanied by a small flock of attendants, a pair of healers, a small contingent of guards, and the Lady Sif.  Thor stood facing them with Loki in his arms, one hand in his husband’s hair and one exploring the fine curves of his ass.  Loki was pressed up against him, his arms twined around Thor’s waist and his head tilted back for Thor’s attention as the latter kissed along his throat.

It wasn’t entirely clear where the polite cough came from, but it had to be repeated before Thor lifted his eyes to look around him, eventually focusing on his mother.  Another few moments passed before he lifted his mouth from Loki’s skin.  By then, the dark prince had managed to turn partly around to see their audience, his eyes lidded and hazy.

“Boys,” Frigga said by way of greeting.  The attendants were entirely too experienced to shuffle awkwardly about in the silence, but the healers weren’t.

Lady Sif grinned at them.

Thor _growled_ , and thunder rolled in the distance.

There was a time when Loki might have yelped and disappeared upon being caught making out with anyone, but he’d been about 14 years old then, mortally speaking.  Besides, if they were all so damned insistent that Thor was his darling husband, then they could live with the consequences of marrying him off to a bloody exhibitionist. 

Besides, the man was back to kissing along the length of his neck, and damn if that wasn’t one of Loki’s most sensitive spots.  Thor’s sensual talents were apparently not overstated, and Loki could not seem to stop himself from shivering. 

Lightning struck the Bridge, and Thor bit down, making Loki flinch.  A tiny squeak almost entirely failed to escape him, but his eyes rolled up and closed.  He swore he could feel Thor’s erection pressing up against him, a feat that should not even have been possible through Thor’s armor and his own.

“Mother…” Loki started, then stopped to compose himself.  Thor did nothing to help with this.  “Thor unleashed himself in battle, and although the berserkergang is passed, he is as yet unwell.  I am afraid we must retire at once.”

Eons of practice made that come out immeasurably smoother than it should have been by right, and Loki smiled with perfect equanimity, even as one of Thor’s hands finally found a way inside his armor and undershirt.  Calloused fingertips grazed across the soft skin over his belly, and Loki’s smile became perhaps a fraction strained.

Heimdall watched all this with the look of an eternal being who had seen far too much in his existence already, and was not particularly interested in seeing this.

“I had reason to believe that there was something amiss,” Frigga said after a minute or two. “I am glad to see that I was mistaken.”

In her infinite mercy, Frigga dismissed her entourage.  Well-practiced at the art of handling royals, particularly _these_ royals, the queen’s staff soon had the small group of guards and healers headed back outside and onto the air boats that had brought them.

That left Frigga and Sif, and the guards that stood outside with the royal skiff.  The queen moved toward the door to the outside.  “Please come break your fast with me tomorrow,” she said over her shoulder to her sons.  She paused for a moment, and then added, with a quick smile at them.  “Actually I’ll expect you no later than dinner.”

Without waiting for a response, she went to board her skimmer, leaving them to deal with their own problems.

Lady Sif was there to escort her queen, but she was obviously enjoying the awkwardness of the moment.  She and the princes had all grown up together, of course, and at some point she had probably seen them in more embarrassing situations, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t enjoy this one now.  It was a little alarming how Thor was glaring at her, but she was familiar enough with the berserker state to keep well clear of Loki, to the point of not looking directly at him.  Aesir men tended to be territorial to begin with, and berserkers were utterly unsympathetic towards people getting too close to what was theirs.  She couldn’t let it all go without some kind of comment, though.

“Try not to break anything he’ll need later,” she said, smirking at them before turning on her heel and walking away, counting on the increasing distance to save her from Thor’s ire.  There was a sharp crack of thunder overhead, as she climbed into the boat, and she laughed as they lifted away.

“Which one of my dear sons were you addressing?” Frigga asked, her hand on the tiller.

“Both, I’d think.  Pardon me, highness, but I don’t think either of them has known much in the way of… pleasurable company… since their marriage.”

Despite her phrasing, it was not the most proper sort of thing to say to the Queen of Asgard about her royal sons, especially when Frigga had been genuinely worried about them earlier.  Sif blushed as she heard it come out of her own mouth. 

Frigga seemed unaffected.

“Well, I hope Loki manages to get them somewhere more private before they’re both too horny to walk,” the Queen said serenely.  “We’re expecting a trade delegation from Alfheim this afternoon, and I don’t think Thor’s diplomacy skills are up to the task of explaining whatever it is he’ll be doing to Loki when they arrive.”

Sif snorted and started to say something about what uses Loki was likely to be putting his silver tongue to, but she regained control of her own tongue first.

Frigga raised an eyebrow at her anyway, as if she’d heard Sif’s unspoken thought, and laughed.

*******

“Take us elsewhere, brother,” Thor rumbled in his ear.  “I’ve held myself back long enough.”

“Yes, all Asgard saw and heard your heroic self-restraint.”

“Would you rather Mother had stayed longer to hear our tale?”

“Ah.  Deviousness suits you,” Loki said, finding it harder to concentrate now that Thor had learned to do that… thing… with his fingers.  “Where shall I take us?”

“ ** _ELSEWHERE_**.”  Heimdall’s voice boomed out behind them, his tone brooking no argument from horny young royals.  Thor snarled in any case, and Loki, more prudent or less interested in stupid arguments, managed to focus his attention for long enough to find another, better place for them with his seidr, and then to move them to it.  After that, it only took a quick gesture and a burst of energy, and then they were gone.

It was almost a perfect spell, a _sublime_ spell, aimed with remarkable precision and carried off with aplomb under difficult circumstances.  Not only would Loki have managed to rotate them in space and land them on an object of uncertain height, but it would have been perfectly romantic and utterly practical.

As it was, he missed the bed in their chambers by a good three feet, and after a moment of surprise, gravity reasserted itself forcefully.  The two of them hit the floor in a tangle of limbs, injured pride, and armor.  Thor started laughing almost as soon as he could breathe again, though, and somehow, Loki didn’t mind so much.

********

Loki was not a virgin. 

He lacked his brother’s reputation partly because he was more discreet, and partly because he was able to heal up his own love bites immediately without any help.   That didn’t mean he’d ever lacked partners whenever he’d wanted them.  There was very little he hadn’t tried at least once, and he doubted that sex could possibly hold any surprises for him.

He was not prepared for the experience of bedding Thor.

Or rather, of being bedded _by_ Thor, because once Thor had him on his back, there was little doubt which of them was in charge.  Thor was effortlessly dominating, kissing him and touching him as he wished, pulling his armor and clothing away to lay him bare for Thor’s pleasure.  It was like being caught in an avalanche, and Loki, to his utter and complete shock, _loved_ it. 

Being the focus of all that adoration, all that intense lust, was more intoxicating than he’d ever dreamed.  Thor cared for nothing at all at that moment but him:  filling his senses with him, experiencing him in every way he hadn’t before.  This was Thor’s devotion made physical, demanding everything and offering everything.  It was, in its way, everything Loki had ever wanted, and it was almost frighteningly easy to yield, and be loved.

Thor set out to kiss any lingering reluctance out of him.

Thor picked him up and carried him like a bride to their marriage bed, which was fitting enough for their first time, he supposed.

Whispering, Thor asked him to clean the last remnants of the battle from their skin, and after a moment of trying to regain his thoughts, he managed it.  For good measure, he rid them of whatever remained of their clothes as well, just before his brother’s weight came down on him and drove the rest of the thoughts out of his head. 

Thor was so _warm_.  His skin was burning and silken and that, more than Thor’s weight, drove the breath right out of his lungs again.

Thor moved over him, touching and tasting everything he liked, sampling glowing, sweat-damp skin.  When Loki tried to touch him, though, Thor took hold of his wrists and gently lifted them over his head, where he kissed the vulnerable inside of each wrist, crossed them, and pressed them to the bed with the soft but firmly spoken command to keep them there. 

And Loki did, even though Thor’s hands and mouth, alternating between cruel and loving, made him writhe shamelessly, overcome with sensation.  Thor, his eyes dark with lust, murmured loving, obscene things as he took possession of Loki’s body.  He was inexorable, and irresistible, gentle, yet demanding everything, and Loki began to slowly lose control of his own reactions.  Large calloused hands ran over his chest, thumbs grazing his nipples, and slid down to his hips before moving to part his thighs.  There was no part of him that Thor’s clever hands and curious tongue did not explore, and before long, he could not think of any reason to resist them.  Thor had transformed him.  He was no longer the self-possessed prince or the sophisticated lover.  He was Thor’s husband, Thor’s lover, and at that moment, Thor’s property, and he could find no fault with that, nor any shame, because Thor cherished him, and loved him, and Loki granted him possession without a thought.

The sheer pleasure of Thor’s satin skin against his own, radiating heat, would have aroused Loki if he hadn’t already been so, and he arched up into it, twining his long legs around his husband’s, pressing his aching cock up against firm flesh.

Thor laughed softly, mouthing the softest curves of Loki’s throat, and let his teeth scrape lightly over damp skin.  He stretched out over Loki for a moment, straining towards the side table, and when he settled down again, his hand was slick.  He knelt between Loki’s thighs and touched him, not bothering to ask for permission that was already granted.  Slick fingers ran along the crease of Loki’s thighs, and then wandered up his perineum, along his sac, and upwards, slicking the length of his cock with a light, teasing stroke of his fingers.

Loki reared up and bit him for being a teasing bastard, and in retaliation, Thor slid two fingers into him all at once, making him shudder and whine.  Breathing hard, Thor stared down into his husband’s eyes as he fingered him, sliding his thick fingers in and out before adding more.  He worked Loki open slowly, not seeming to notice whether his new lover was gasping in delight or pain or pure sensation, opening him for his own pleasure. 

Loki moaned Thor’s name, and Thor kissed him, hot and deep and perfect.  “I told you I’d have you beneath me,” he murmured.

“Then have me, you lazy bastard,” Loki managed, and Thor rasped a laugh. 

“Not quite yet,” he said, adding a finger.  Loki hissed at him impatiently, but he did nothing to stop him, tilting his hips up for more.

Thor allowed it, but tightened his grip, not allowing him any more leverage.  He took his time, bunching his fingers and thrusting until he was certain that the way was open enough for him.  When he was satisfied, he pulled his fingers free, and manhandled Loki, arranging him as his pleased.  Loki moved languidly despite his shivering excitement, letting his thighs be parted so that Thor could move between them, kneeling so that he could pull Loki into his lap.

“I’ll fill you up,” Thor rumbled, pressing up against Loki’s ass.  “Slide my cock in, stretch you wide, and flood you with my seed.”

Loki’s reply may have as a coherent answer, but it escaped him as a groaning sigh.  That was a tongue  Thor well understood, one which he had spoken many times, and in answer, he whispered his lover’s name and pressed in, opening him up, spreading him wide as he’d promised.  Loki felt the impossible stretch and the slide, and that was all he knew; he did not hear himself call out Thor’s name, or feel the way his nails tore the skin of Thor’s back.

It burned and it ached and then Thor was in, and then Thor kissed him, and they were as intimately joined as they had ever been in their very long lives.  It was overwhelming, and intensely good, and he was lost almost as soon as it began. 

Thor’s gentleness had been spent on preparing him, and now he thrust in hard and relentlessly, making the massive bed frame shake and move, until it hit the wall.  He held back nothing, slamming hard into Loki’s welcoming body.  He ran his hands beneath his husband’s back and curled them up over his shoulders, so that he had him pinned in place, only grunting as Loki wrapped his legs around his body and pulled, trying to get him in harder and deeper, trying to get _more_.

 It was harsh and it was violent, but if there were any doubts left, the bond that surged to life, burning just under their skin, banished these thoughts completely.   It did not make them closer to each other, or give them the ability to read each other’s thoughts; no heavenly choirs sang.  Consummation of their marriage was no magical key.   It did, however, spin their feelings outward, entangling each in the other’s emotions.  Loki felt Thor’s love and feral need for possession like he felt the man’s body on and against his own, like the way each thrust drove the from his lungs.  Thor felt Loki’s wildfire affections engulf him, scorching him, and the unexpected sweetness of his submission to Thor’s need.

It left Loki gasping for breath, unable to fill his lungs or shift the hot, sweat-slick bulk of his brother.  He twisted, almost wanting to get away and to cover himself, but there was no way to hide how much he enjoyed this, how much he’d _craved_ this, being the sole focus of all Thor’s attention and all his desire, the one being that Thor wanted more than anyone else.  The one who held the key to Thor’s completion.

Thor pressed open-mouthed kisses along the vulnerable column of Loki’s throat and held him close, and did not stop.  His rhythm never faltered, even as he worked to keep Loki beneath him.  “No,” he murmured against his husband’s skin, “no.”  He would have this; _they_ would have this, despite Loki’s pride and despite his fears, despite all the battles they had fought against each other.  He wanted this, and maybe he was still the arrogant bastard he’d always been, but he would see this desire fulfilled.

Loki made a sound like he was both furious and on the edge of tears, but when Thor looked down, his face was almost peaceful again, except for the way his mouth was quivering, and the high color in his cheeks.  His lashes were wet, and Thor softly kissed the tears away, even as his hips moved pitilessly. 

Loki groaned and leaned up to kiss him, and with an enormous shudder, he came, every part of him grasping Thor with all the strength he could muster, as if they could somehow become one.  Thor cursed and bit his throat and thrust brutally, trying to catch up with him, trying to match him.  He manhandled him, pushed him, and twined around him desperately, and then he came inside his husband for the first time with a strangled moan.

They lay together in silence for a long time, tentatively reaching out to touch each other, hands sliding gently over damp skin, exploring what had been forbidden for most of their lives.   These slow, intimate moments were something neither of them had much experience with, and they were hesitant, fearing rejection even now.  The bond, much less uncertain than they, hummed softly in the back of their minds.

Thor leaned in and pressed his mouth to Loki’s, and their tongues touched softly, moving slickly against each other.  It was as close to a benediction as either had ever come.

Finally, exhausted, they slept.

*******

Loki woke up three days later to an empty bed and an overwhelming need to piss. 

Afterwards, he ran a bath, not particularly caring whether the rest of the world needed him or not.  Stepping down into the warm water, he sighed in pleasure.   He’d decided fairly early on in life that hot baths were a universal good, and nothing had convinced him otherwise so far.  The various aromatic soaps certainly weren’t a good argument against them either, and he sniffed at a few before finding a combination he liked.  Scrubbing lazily at his skin and hair, he luxuriated in warmth and quiet. 

He could feel Thor somewhere out on the palace grounds, doing something that made him happy, and so he didn’t spend much thought on him.

Humming quietly, he stretched out in the water, sinking beneath the surface and rinsing the soap away.

There were bruises across his hips, he noticed.  Fingerprints and what must be the marks of Thor’s hands.  He traced them lightly with his own fingers, a little wide-eyed at how dark and defined they were.  There were bruises around his wrists as well, he realized.   Suddenly he could feel all the bruises and scratches, and every sore place Thor had left him with, and he sat bolt upright in the bath, which brought yet another sore area to his immediate attention.

The memories of Thor on top of him, holding him down, making him take everything, flooded over him, and Loki froze.  He’d been willing.   Fuck, he’d been _ecstatic_ to let Thor take control of him.  Thor had still felt the fire in his blood, and it had banished the gentleness from his touch, and Loki had _loved_ being under him, being the focus of all that power and all that lust.  It had been like being caught under an avalanche, and he hadn’t even tried to escape.

Thor had proven himself worthy of a level of trust Loki hadn’t known he was capable of giving.

He stared at his bruised wrists, and the vivid memory of Thor holding them tightly with one large hand made his skin flush with sudden heat. 

He could have escaped.  It would have been a struggle, given that their bond would always lead Thor to him, but he could have put enough distance between them to cool even Thor’s ardor.   He just hadn’t wanted to.

The next time, he realized, he would just as happily stretch himself out beneath his husband and surrender all of his control, just to know that he was the center of Thor’s world.  Thor would bend Loki to his desire, and, in return, he would make himself vulnerable as all his attention was turned to his lover.   Thor had learned last night how to tenderly wreck him, how to pin him down and ruin him, and that Loki would let him.

The thought terrified him. 

It was a weakness he’d never suspected, and Thor had brought it into the light without even trying.  What else might he discover?  The bond should comfort him in this, but somehow it did not.  Somehow it made it worse.

He lived always with the knowledge that something else lay beneath his skin, something entirely foreign to him.  He did not fundamentally trust himself, and welcomed no sudden revelations.

What else might Thor discover?

Shivering suddenly, he clambered out of the bath.  Catching sight of himself in the mirror, he turned away from his marked skin and green eyes, finding a bath sheet to wrap himself in.  Before he managed to cover himself with it, though, he found Thor standing in the open doorway, his eyes wide with something like panic.

 _Oh_.  The bond must have leaked his emotions, and Thor had come running.

Then the thought of explaining himself, of talking about any of his revelations, of explaining any of this to _Thor_ came down on him hard, bringing utter mortification with it.  The two of them locked eyes for a moment, and then, with a complete lack of grace and dignity, Loki fled, the towel falling to the ground as he suddenly disappeared completely.

In his wake, Thor sank to his knees, his heart beating wildly. 

Thor remembered only bits and pieces of their love-making.  He’d still been more than a touch feral, and most of what he now recalled were fragments of lust and pleasure and a deep happiness that had still been with him this morning when he’d woke.  He’d left Loki asleep, wrapped up in the sheets, and gone out to seek something to bring back for them to eat, still buoyed up by a glowing feeling of contentment. 

And then he’d felt it, like a shadow across the sun: a thread of misery and unease that had set his teeth on edge until he realized it was coming from Loki, and with that he’d flung himself into the air, crossing the distance to his own balconies in a matter of moments, and then running…

… to find Loki battered and bruised and full of fear.  _Fear of him_.  He’d seen it, right before Loki had fled.

Before Loki had run away from him.

What had he _done_?

 

~ To be continued ~

**Author's Note:**

> Once upon a time, I came across a norsekink prompt for Loki being forced to marry Thor and finding that it's all he ever wanted to make him happy.
> 
> It was a good prompt. Then I did this to it.
> 
> True love conquers all, but it's not gonna be pretty.
> 
> My tumblr, because of course I have one, can be found at http://xero--sky.tumblr.com/


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